W.N.O.’s Spring season began with a celebration of the role of the chorus in opera.  Here joined by soprano Lesley Garrett they ran through a dizzying sequence of choruses that exhibited the range of roles that the chorus is called upon to fulfil in opera. The highly familiar, such as Puccini’s Humming Chorus (‘Madame Butterfly’) and Verdi’s Va Pensiero and Anvil Chorus,  appeared next to the less familiar (including scenes from Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen’ and Mussorgsky’s Wailing Chorus from ‘Khovanshchina’) culminating in a memorable ‘Make our garden grow’ from Bernstein’s ‘Candide’.

This is a chorus that clearly can turn its hand to almost anything and has been a consistently strong feature throughout W.N.O. seasons. This was no exception – whether it was as Britten’s lynch mob in ‘Peter Grimes’, as factory workers in ‘Carmen’ or in comic mode in Gilbert and Sullivan – they segued effortlessly (and sometimes comically as when The Murderers Chorus from ‘Macbeth’ grew out of Wagner’s Spinning Chorus). There was even time for a choreographed ‘Hallelujah Chorus’.

Lesley Garrett was a good choice of soloist as she led one of the highlights of the evening in the ‘Alabama Song’ from Weill’s ‘The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny’  and as she reclined on a chaise longue high above the chorus in Offenbach’s Barcarolle though she was less comfortable in La vergine degli angeli  from ‘The Force of Destiny’.

A splendid evening’s entertainment – for opera buff and newcomer alike.