The Sofa/The Departure

Published Friday 16 November 2007 at 17:55 by George Hall

Not much notice has been taken of the centenary of the birth of English composer Elizabeth Maconchy, so the opportunity to sample two of her one-act operas is welcome.

The Sofa, premiered at Sadler’s Wells in 1959, is a whimsical comedy about a playboy turned into a sofa by his witch-like grandmother, who can only be released when a couple make love upon him. Much darker is The Departure, from 1962, in which the victim of a car crash returns for one final encounter with her husband.

Neither work is a lost masterpiece, but The Sofa is amiable enough in its waltzy way and there’s a dull ache to the more strained writing of The Departure. But what makes the evening worthwhile is the exceptional level of performance. Alessandro Talevi’s productions are sharply defined, brilliantly so in the case of the comedy, which Madeleine Boyd’s set and Ryszard Andrzejewski’s costumes transfer to an up-to-the-minute London club. Conductor Dominic Wheeler gives each score detailed attention and dynamism.

The only weakness is poor diction, which is impossible to defend in such a small venue. But there are vivid standouts from Sarah Tynan’s Amy Winehouse lookalike Monique, Nicholas Sharratt’s energetic Dominique and Josephine Thorpe’s eccentric Grandmother, while the whole company carries the comedy off with tremendous verve. Sharratt’s transformation into a sofa is marvellously done. Though the material is slender, both these productions deserve a longer life-span.