It’s A Wonderful Life – ENO / London Coliseum (LAST CHANCE TO SEE)

Let’s get the Christmas season underway with this adaptation of the beloved 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life, performed as an opera by the English National Opera (ENO).

Warning: allusions to suicide. Plus plenty of spoilers.

It’s A Wonderful Life

“This year,” I thought, “I will do something different. I need to branch out from seeing multiple versions of A Christmas Carol, like I did in 2020 and 2021. There are many more Christmas tales to be told!” Well, reader, I had the best of intentions. And yet I couldn’t help but book for one or two little versions of A Christmas Carol (more coming soon). But Christmas is a season of generosity, there is room in my heart for all of these festive productions! Let’s kick off the season with It’s a Wonderful Life.

The original It’s a Wonderful Life is a 1946 film by Frank Capra, starring James Stewart as George Bailey, the dependable good guy from little ol’ Bedford Falls. The key to the film is that, well, George doesn’t feel it’s been a wonderful life. In a series of flashbacks taking up almost the entire film, we see how always doing the right thing has seen George put his own hopes and dreams on the backburner. When some money from the family business goes missing and the bank examiners come calling, George gets ready to throw in the towel. Enter guardian angel Clarence, on his first assignment, to the rescue. Clarence shows George how dark the timeline would be if he had never existed. George is filled with horror, then with Christmas cheer when his old life is restored.

It’s a Wonderful Life was first adapted as an opera in Houston in 2016 by Jake Heggie. This is its first performance by the ENO, with Frederick Ballentine as George, Jennifer France as his wife Mary, and Danielle de Niese in the (gender-swapped because it’s a soprano) role of Clara the Angel.

Inclusive Opera: Remind Me Why That’s A Bad Thing?

Overall, I felt the adaptation was very successful. The thing about those old black and white films is they were very melodramatic, so actually the operatic format works quite well. The singers have experience with extremes of emotion, as it were. The production stays close enough to the original for fans, while making a few interesting changes (like Clarence to Clara) which keep it fresh. Another interesting change is the sequence where George meets people from his life who don’t recognise him: he never existed. This is done without music, a little theatrical interlude. It works very well.

The thing is, as much as it might seem odd to spend your Saturday afternoon seeing a film turned into an opera, this is an inclusive production. Famously the ENO sing in English of course (still with surtitles). It’s not some distant historic saga, it’s a story you don’t need any background to understand. Plus from a diversity and inclusion standpoint there are efforts on both sides of the fourth wall. The diverse cast included, among others, a number of young artists supported through a career development programme. And there are various schemes granting cheap or even free tickets to get audiences in who might not otherwise have access to opera.

The unfortunate thing, of course, is that the Arts Council have recently cast themselves in the role of miserly Mr. Potter. The ENO have been stripped of funding, with only partial funding offered if they decamp to Manchester. The Arts Council can of course only distribute such money as the government allocates. But it does beg the question: when an organisation is clearly doing so much to change opera for the better, why not support it? Check out the petition here for more information.

In the meantime you have less than a week left to catch It’s a Wonderful Life. Hopefully it will be able to return to the London Coliseum for future festive seasons. But there is no time like the present to show support while enjoying some Christmas cheer.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3.5/5

It’s a Wonderful Life on until 10 December 2022