• Advertise
  • Request Review
  • Write for Us
  • Privacy
  • Login

Theatre Bubble

The UK Theatre Network

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Reviews
  • News
  • Features
  • Spotlight
  • Opinions
  • Interviews
  • Guides

EdFringe2019 / Admiring La Stupenda at Greenside Nicolson Square

August 13, 2019 by Karen Barclay Leave a Comment

Review of: Admiring La Stupenda
Produced by:
Daniel Somerville
Price:
£12 to £9.50

Reviewed by: Karen Barclay
Rating:
4
On August 13, 2019
Last modified:August 13, 2019

Summary:

Tragi-camp performance lecture that takes the gestures that opera singers make on stage and turns them into a powerful sequence of dances.

More Details

I took notes for this show. Not notes for the review, but notes of all the things I was learning, because this is a performance lecture, based on a PhD thesis. If that makes it sound dry or boring, then you could not be more wrong, because Admiring La Stupenda is funny, dramatic and warmly presented.

Its subject is the gestures of Opera singers, and it takes those gestures and translates them into dance.

To do this, it not only focuses on one singer, Joan Sutherland, it also relates her to her most ardent fan, the Opera Queen. A dying breed, the Opera Queen, would use an exhaustive knowledge of opera, obsessive collecting, and the fastidious cataloguing of their collection to protect their feelings from a world that often aggressively marginalised them.

Also a fan, Daniel Somerville, recreates a bedsit out of sheets on the floor, and then, brilliantly, uses the sheets to make Sutherland’s outfits. He then dances her most famous performance, the mad scene from Donizetti’s Lucia Di Lammermoor. Meticulously accurate, this is also ridiculous. The essence of camp has always been something low, aiming to be something high, while seemingly entirely unaware that it’s failed. With opera we contrive to pretend that its sophisticated music means there is nothing at all laughable about a larger lady wafting around a stage covered in fake blood, eyes wide, convinced she’s about to marry a man she murdered.

From this strong, clear start, the thesis loses its way. I’m not entirely sure where he’s going when he starts to talk about his mother and anxiety, or how that ties in with fandom and his love of Joan Sutherland. We’re in darker territory, the dances become sad, and frighteningly grotesque. We’re going deeper than camp, deeper than the rules that we use to order our thoughts, and down into the seething, yearning, pools of feeling that most of us fear to drown in. It’s a powerful ending, and I left thinking about voices that are rich, dark and agile, and dancers who will rolls and flap around a stage in total silence, and the way bubble machines can make an ordinary space magical.

CAST AND CREW

Technical and Stage Manager: Geraldine Gibbons
Supported By: The University of Worcester
Created and Performed By: Daniel Somerville

Admiring La Stupenda will be continuing its run at Greenside at Nicolson Square till 17th August at 15:00. You can book your tickets from www.edfringe.com

Author: Karen Barclay

Filed Under: Review Tagged With: Admiring La Stupenda, Edinburgh Fringe 2019, Greenside, Joan Sutherland

Join the discussion Cancel reply

NEWS / ZU-UK presents Radio Ghost

ZU-UK presents Radio Ghost, a walking game for three participants journeying through a haunted shopping mall. Premiering at LIFT Festival [Read More]

INTERVIEW / Sophie Leydon on Rapture at Pleasance London

Sophie Leydon (She/Her) is a Writer and Director whose practice centres staging LGBTQIA+ experience through interdisciplinary forms. She tells us [Read More]

INTERVIEW / Claire Cunningham talks 4 Legs Good in BE festival

Garden State (8 – 11 June) is an art installation made up of hundreds of houseplants lent by local residents [Read More]

INTERVIEW / Paul Bourne talks about Bliss at the Finborough Theatre

Written by Fraser Grace (Breakfast with Mugabe, RSC), Bliss is based on a short story by censored writer Andrey Platonov. It’s at Finborough [Read More]

NEWS / Japanese Romeo and Juliet to the songs of Queen announced

Coming to Sadler’s Wells in September as part of its world tour, A Night At The Kabuki is a retelling [Read More]

Top Posts & Pages

  • 5 Stage Elements to Consider for a Rousing Theatrical Production
  • 10 Tips to Help You Prepare for Your Reality TV Auditions
  • Amit Lahav - Artistic Director of Gecko Theatre
  • ZU-UK presents Radio Ghost
  • Cinderella at Hounslow Arts Centre
  • Katy Owen: Auditioning for Oxford School of Drama
  • Tamburlaine at the Arcola Theatre
  • Romeo and Juliet- Rose Theatre, Kingston Sublime Shakespeare.
  • After All This- Ovalhouse
  • Ameena Hamid on Tales from the Tombstone Tavern
  • Karen Barclay
    Contributor

  • August 13th, 2019
  • comment iconNo Comments
  • Facebook78TweetLinkedInEmail

    Newsletter

    Enjoyed what you've read? Get even more great content directly to your inbox - Completely Free

    About Theatre Bubble

    Theatre Bubble is the news, review and blogging site created by Blue Pie Media and run by a dedicated team of outstanding editors and writers: we're always looking for new contributors - to find out more click here.

    Contact Us

    News: news@theatrebubble.com
    Reviews: reviews@theatrebubble.com
    Website: webmaster@theatrebubble.com

    Privacy Policy

    Copyright © 2022 · Blue Pie Media

     

    Loading Comments...
     

      Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

      Email sent!