Leonard Bernstein began composing his satire on a dysfunctional marriage when on honeymoon and, by his own admission, the one-act opera was based on the bickering nature of his parents’ relationship. Sam and Jennie Bernstein were very much alive in 1951 and can’t have been thrilled to know they’d spawned such an unhappy pair. Names were barely disguised: Sam was still named Sam and Jennie only became Dinah because it worked better musically. In Mid Wales Opera’s new staging, it’s the true-to-life element that gives the work its disquietingly contemporary feel, along with Bernstein’s particular combination of punchy word-setting and jazz-inflected score.
MWO’s continued survival against the odds is ample testimony to their gutsy approach and, while this SmallStages touring production is necessarily done on a minimal budget, it manages to realise an authentic 50s vibe as well as the claustrophobia of Sam and Dinah’s marital treadmill. Bernstein’s device of a sassy trio – here sung by Kirsty McLean, Sam Marston and John Ieuan Jones – with lively Greek chorus-style eulogising of the suburban American dream heightens the contrast between the couple’s consumerist aspirations and their all-too-evident personal despair. Director Richard Studer reinforced this by having the trio interact closely with Sam and Dinah, sometimes setting up further tensions, but also bringing a lighter, wittier touch to the dark irony of the narrative.
