Review: The Opera Locos (Sadler's Wells Theatre)

Review by Matthew Plampton

⭐️⭐️

Can you merge opera with slapstick comedy and make it funny? That is the central gamble of The Opera Locos, the latest offering from Spanish company YLLANA, arriving at Sadler's Wells Theatre for a limited run following previous outings in the UK at Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Peacock Theatre. Blending opera's greatest hits with vaudeville, pantomime, and slapstick, it promises to be a show for everybody, from die-hard opera fans to those who "don't know their Aidas from their arias." But does this formula translate into an entertaining evening of comedy opera?

The premise involves five exaggerated archetypes: Jesús Álvarez plays a once-celebrated tenor now visibly on the slide; Enrique Sánchez-Ramos plays a preening baritone who fancies himself the alpha of the ensemble; Michaël Koné plays a playful counter-tenor whose loyalties lean more towards pop than Puccini; María Rey-Joly plays a wide-eyed soprano nursing romantic delusions; and Mayca Teba plays a volatile mezzo who threatens to upend proceedings at every turn. Each takes turns performing operatic standards and pop numbers in a loosely assembled sketch format. Of these, the most sustained follows Alfredo's downward spiral, as he can barely get through a bar of Nessun Dorma without dissolving into coughs, and the bottle is never far away, before an encounter with his besotted admirer steers the evening towards romance, borrowing liberally from the melodramatic playbooks of Madam Butterfly and La Traviata to fashion what serves as the show's emotional backbone. A second arc pairs Koné and Enrique in a dynamic that begins as a comic singing lesson and develops into a love story of its own.

Where The Opera Locos soars is in its vocal performances; these are excellent singers, and their talent is never in question. The operatic numbers land with genuine power; the long-teased arrival of Nessun Dorma, performed in full after several false starts, is a genuinely rousing moment. Similarly, the transitions between opera classics and pop hits from Whitney Houston to Mika to Frank Sinatra are handled with real skill, a credit to the musical direction of Marc Álvarez and Manuel Coves. When the cast is simply allowed to sing, the show makes a persuasive case for itself. It is precisely this quality that makes the comedy's shortcomings all the more frustrating.

Where The Opera Locos soars vocally, it stumbles theatrically. The physical humour — the slapstick, the exaggerated mime, the broad gestures — carries the freewheeling spontaneity of a more intimate setting, an energy that feels mismatched with the scale and expectation of a Sadler's Wells auditorium. What might generate hearty laughs in a more intimate setting lands rather more flatly in a larger house, where the gags need greater precision and sharper timing to connect across the distance. Too often, the comedy relies on well-worn devices; the puffed-up baritone, the lovelorn soprano, or the eccentric counter-tenor, without ever deepening or subverting them enough to sustain interest over the full running time.

The audience interaction, a selling point of the production, proves similarly underwhelming. Enrique ventures into the stalls armed with a microphone, singling out audience members and coaxing the room into a collective singalong, but the whole exercise feels rehearsed rather than organic, leaning on a predictable formula that never quite sparks the way it needs to. By the time the finale arrives, bringing a whirlwind of further participation and slapstick skits, it is difficult to escape the feeling that the show is trying rather hard to generate the joyous chaos it keeps insisting upon.

The costume and production design by Tatiana De Sarabia, David Ottone and Yeray González does deserve credit. Their aesthetic leans into a kind of gilded punk extravagance — electric blue wigs, heavy stage make-up, ornate gold framing — that knowingly sends up opera's fondness for visual excess. YLLANA plainly grasps the value of a strong first impression. Yet spectacle alone cannot carry an evening when the material between the musical numbers struggles to justify its place.

Perhaps the fundamental tension at the heart of The Opera Locos is that it sits awkwardly between two ambitions: making opera accessible and delivering a comedy show. In trying to serve both masters, it ends up slightly short-changing each. Newcomers to opera will recognise several famous melodies but leave with no greater understanding of the narratives or traditions from which they are plucked. For those seeking comedy, the humour is too broad and too repetitive to truly satisfy. The show insists it is for everyone, but this universality comes at the cost of depth, leaving an evening that is pleasant and intermittently thrilling but rarely more than that.

Therein lies the frustration of The Opera Locos: the gap between what you hear and what you see is vast. When Álvarez finally unleashes Nessun Dorma in full, or when the ensemble locks into a soaring arrangement, you are reminded why opera has endured for centuries. Then a slapstick gag lands with a thud, or a singalong limps through its paces, and you sense a show conceived for a cosier, more intimate space. The talent on that stage deserves sharper, braver writing; the voices deserve comedy that can match their precision and their power. As it stands, The Opera Locos is an excellent concert trapped inside an underwhelming sketch show — and it is the sketch show, regrettably, that sets the ceiling.

The Opera Locos plays at Sadler’s Wells until 28th February. Tickets from https://allthatdazzles.londontheatredirect.com/opera/the-opera-locos-tickets