Seven years ago Tapestry Opera premiered Gareth Williams and Anna Chatterton’s Rocking Horse Winner at the Berkeley Street Theatre.  Last night they opened an eight show re-run at Crow’s Theatre, once again directed by Michael Mori.  There are lots of similarities and a some differences between the productions and I’m going to concentrate on the latter so if you aren’t familiar with the piece you might want to read my 2016 review.

The space is a bit different.  The stage is narrower and more compressed front to back.  The main change this has resulted in is moving Ava’s piano from the side to the centre of the stage.  There are cast changes.  The biggest is that Lucia Cesaroni plays Ava rather than Carla Huhtanen.  They have quite different voices and a different take on the character.  Lucia has a much richer, more resonant soprano than Carla.  She also, I think, plays Ava as more the rather spoiled upper class (former) brat whose expectations have been disappointed and this rolls over rather more obviously into her relationship with her son, Paul.  I got the sense that for this Ava he was part of the package of life’s disappointments where as the Huhtahnen version was more conflcted.  So for Cesaroni’s Ava Paul is not just a problem he’s a disappointment.  Her son was just as much destined to be Head of School and Captain of the XI as she was destined to be the Toast of Society.

The four singers who play The House have changed too.  The quartet is now Midori Marsh, Alex Hetherington, Anika Venkatesh and Korin Thomas-Smith.  I think there was maybe more energy there and certainly more spookiness.  Maybe this was partly because the activity of the quartet behind the scrim was more visible.  I’m not sure but whatever it was worked.  The other three principals; Asitha Tennekoon as Paul, Peter McGillivray as Bassett and Keith Klassen as Oscar haven’t changed and are all excellent.  Tennekoon is really good, especially in the crucial final scene.

Kamna Gupta conducts from the side of the stage with the string quartet; repeated on a monitor for the on-stage cast including pianist Stéphane Mayer.  She does a fine job and everything hangs together.  And this time there were surtitles!

I think it’s a very successful revival.  Differences from the original are not huge but I think they are probably improvements and, all in all, it’s a satisfying sixty minutes of music theatre.

Rocking Horse Winner runs at Crow’s Theatre until November 12th.

Photo credits: Dahlia Katz