The Enchanted Pig a Musical tale
The Enchanted Pig is performed by WAAPA Classical Voice Students and accompanied by Musical Director Tommaso Pollio, in WAAPA’s concert venue, the Richard Gill Auditorium. While officially a “semi-staged” production, this is a show that is full of life, with some clever staging, and is well acted, performed with commitment and beautifully sung.
A chamber opera, it brings to life fairy tales The Enchanted Pig and The Brown Bear of Norway and is partly fairy story and part epic journey. Simply staged, costumes and props follow a hot pink and black theme, and lighting is basic but effective.
The Enchanted Pig has a pair of alternating casts, cheekily named Devon and Spam, and this review covers the Spam cast.
Three sisters, Mab (a strident Bonnie Staude), Dot (a romantic Samantha Deykin) and Flora (Zoe Lancaster our admirable and very worthy heroine), are warned not to enter a room. In the way of fairy tales, of course they do go into the forbidden room, where they discover the Book of Fate, which determines that the youngest sister will marry a pig.
Wonderful work from all the cast. Sholto Foss was a fine and dignified King Hildegard, who doubled impressively as the comedic Mr Northwind, Alumni performer Euan Macmillan and Lachlan Ross were lovely suitors for the older princesses, while Sam Claxton was delightful in the unusual title role.
Brittney Northcott was an impressive villainess, with Emily Davis likeably unlikeable as her daughter (and pig/husband stealer) Adelaide.
In smaller roles, Bobbi Ralls gave us a magical “Book of Fate” and Bobbi Ralls was great fun as Mrs Northwind.
Solid performances from the Chorus members, who were active and involved throughout – all giving superbly sung, well energised performances.
This partially staged production delivered a lot of bang for the buck, and although it lacked elaborate staging, the production employed lots of clever devices and a united design concept that gave it much of the feel of a fully realised show. A very enjoyable evening of theatre.
Kimberley Shaw
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