Mignon, by Ambroise Thomas, University College London Opera, Bloomsbury Theatre Mignon Klara Uleman Philine Susanne Schubert Wilhelm Anthony Norton Lothario Jakov Marishoev Laertes Julian Jensen Frederick Alex Evans Antonio Robert Lown Conductor David Drummond Director Netia Davan Wetton Designer Pippa Nissen Lighting Guiseppe Di Iorio Orchestra, Chorus and Chamber Choir of UCL A crisis of logistics and liquidity left me unable to get to Mefistofele tonight. This was a shame, as Boioto comes as close to Goethe as you can get in opera and I've never seen le grand Sam in person. But I made do with a bit of Wilhelm Meister, and it was pretty good. Mignon was the smash hit of the 1860s to 1890s or so but, according to the UCL programme, hasn't been done by "a major company" in the UK since Sadlers Wells in 1932. This isn't quite as significant as it seems, as it was done at Wexford in 1986. In fact, the list of past productions by UCLO overlaps considerably with Wexford (which I can't complain about, as you can get to the Bloomsbury Theatre on the underground). Although the plot is an episode in the novel, one of a sequence of learning experiences that make Wilhelm Meister into a great poet, it stands alone pretty well. Wilhelm, doing the student tour of Europe, buys the freedom of a wild girl, Mignon, who has been travelling with gypsies and doesn't know her origin. She tags along with him, as does a crazy wanderer, Lothario, who is looking for his lost daughter. (Uh huh.) Wilhelm starts an affair with a free-spirited actress, Philine, and Mignon becomes furiously jealous. Lothario burns down the theatre where Philine is appearing in Un reve d'ete because Mignon hates it, and she rushes into the flames, only to be rescued by Wilhelm. He takes her off to Italy to recuperate and buys a ruined house for her. Lothario recognizes the house as his own, becomes sane and tells Mignon she is his daughter. After a last outburst of jealousy, she declares her love for Wilhelm, while Philine settles for her gormless admirer Frederick. It's all pretty schematic. Philine is self-invented artifice, with formal arias (in baroque forms, with lots of coloratura) and Mignon is unselfconscious nature. As she becomes aware of her love for Wilhelm, she imitates Philine both in dress and behaviour, and in her music, until she recovers her memory and returns to a more enlightened state of nature. Wilhelm's parallel development sees him grow from love for pure theatrical effect to reciprocated love for a real person. It's all done with very attractive (though not totally undemanding) music, and a good sense of drama. Some of the music recalls Carmen (which came later), but so does the way the music uses themes and transformations to organize the drama. The UCLO production and performances were first rate. The production made Wilhelm into a high-minded Interrailling student. Everybody was in vaguely 1950s costume, with a few mini-skirts. Pretty much the sort of thing students wear, in fact, and easily available in nearby Camden. But (apart from the end, when some of the women changed disconcertingly into little black dresses) it looked coherent enough. The actors Philine and Laertes wore eighteenth-century costumes for the play, which had some period furniture and a banjo hanging in mid air. The set was otherwise minimal, consisting of grey scrims, a red platform at the back of the stage and an orangish block for the house in act three. There was some confused use of back-lit shadows on the front scrim. The chorus provided a lot of decor with movement, but the big numbers were all delivered downstage, straight to the audience. The performance was in French, and some of the singers were clearer than others. But the very thorough programme notes, as well as the clarity of the production, made it difficult to miss the point. The singers were mainly younger professionals, with students in the smallers roles. Klara Uleman was superb as Mignon. She's a bit tall and muscular for the role, which I assume wants a vulnerable gamine. She sang beautifully and conveyed Mignon's unselfconscious emotional shifts perfectly. Jakov Marishoev looked right as her long-lost father, but his singing was a bit unfocussed and he didn't really come over as crazy, more mildly upset. Anthony Norton made Wilhelm into a complete lightweight (well, ok, he is, but it would be nice to have a proper romantic closure to an opera). Susanne Schubert as Philine was a bit like Vivienne Westwood, coming over as mildly dotty rather than a passionate free spirit. Julian Jensen was very funny as Laertes, a thesp of the old school and Philine's secret admirer and public sparring partner. I recognized the music of Philine's aria Je suis Titania, where she greets her adoring public after the play, from the film The life and death of Colonel Blimp. In the film it characterizes the lower middlebrow cultural aspirations of the decent but morally woolly English buddies who sing it at the drop of a hat. A character in the films loses it every time he hears Je suis Titania, as does Mignon in the opera. But if Mignon is purely popular music theatre, like Carmen, it's very well made, and well worth a production like this one that takes it seriously.