If I was asked to write a concert piece, I might find myself wondering what my true voice was."Peter Pan had its world premiere in December 2004 at the Grand Theatre, Leeds; now it is coming to Sadler's Wells, London. He also composed the music for the Royal Shakespeare Company productions The Cherry Orchard and The White Devil, and has written music for more than 40 television projects, including Prime Suspect. Stephen Warbeck is the Oscar-winning composer who scored the films Shakespeare in Love, Billy Elliot and Captain's Corelli's Mandolin. James Conway is credited, but to say that the evening runs the gamut of emotion from A to B would be pushing it a bit. Arts Theatre, Cambridge (01223 503333) tomorrow; then touring ( .uk). According to the press information he wears the same boots here as Johnny Depp wore in Pirates of the Caribbean. So far, precious little of Depp's swagger has rubbed off.Noel Davies conducted a tight, brassy little band well complementing the small but spirited chorus Not much evidence of a director, though.
This is the best music in the piece, Mary's voice floating free of the chorus, primed for eternity.One other voice made an impression - the tenor Nicholas Ransley as Leicester But as yet it's a good voice squarely used He needs to open up the phrasing and free himself. Anne Mason had quite the reverse problem, sounding hectic and stressed in the coloratura but blossoming in repose. She had a really decent stab at the huge final scene where Janet Baker is forever in my inner ear. The steel-framed set with its furtive sliding panels, some with translucent tapestries inlaid, was a simple way around the scenic demands. The costumes were not.Poor Anne Mason's Mary was marked out as a victim from her very first entrance, an Elizabethan fashion victim in what lambs to the slaughter might be wearing this season, complete with fake-fleece trimmings.
Most of the costumes looked like they were at the first-fitting stage. Jennifer Rhys-Davies could have hidden most of the cast under her bustle in Act III.Their singing, though, kept my attention from straying to the uneven hemlines. Rhys-Davies deployed the pyrotechnics with some aplomb, dispatching her fury rashly (and quite excitingly) above the stave. If she could just find more beauty in the sound, more fullness at the top.
