There’s a moment in Stravinsky’s Faust fable The Soldier’s Tale when we think it’s all going to be alright. The soldier has married his princess and they are living their happily ever after. Except, of course, they’re not.
There have been lots of Soldier’s Tales this year. Originally conceived for a Europe in the grip of Spanish flu, it’s a perfect fit for a new pandemic. But the gut-punch of this strange little music-theatre piece is impossible to prepare for. The house always wins and the devil gets the last laugh in the horrible death-rattle of Stravinsky’s closing march.
There’s a light touch to this new staging from the Hallé Orchestra and co-directors Annabel Arden and Femi Elufowoju Jr, filmed by Dominic Best. The Orchestra’s Manchester home becomes the playground for the small cast, who might speak of fields and gardens but who trudge the city’s urban, canal-side streets, and day drink on its benches.
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A smudgy palette of browns, khakis and dark blues is offset by the bright flashes from the seven-piece band, conducted by Sir Mark Elder. Violinist Peter Liang sets the tone, giving the soldier’s fiddle a polish that steps away from grungier, folk-gritty accounts and into a musical fantasy-scape.
There’s sardonic, seductive crooning from bassoon and clarinet, and the jazz episodes glitter like the sequins on the Princess’s flapper dress.
Jeremy Sams’ updated English translation is not new, but it still sounds fresh, driving the drama forwards in verse whose punchlines ricochet off the rhyming couplets.
It’s beautifully delivered by Mark Lockyer’s Devil – a villain whose malignancy seems in search of a motive, his manic, gleeful manipulations hollow behind the smile.
Martins Imhangbe is the straight man to Lockyer’s wild card, a squaddie we root for through it all, who comes into his own in the physical theatre of the final episodes – a silent movie-style duel with the Devil, and a carefully choreographed courtship with Faith Prendergast’s Princess.
Slick and watchable, a smooth blend of studio-performance and film, this is a poisonous piece sprinkled with just enough sugar to help it slip down a treat.
Streaming to 29 July, halle.co.uk
