Ruination, Royal Opera House review — up-tempo Medea combines tragedy and farce

Asked to devise a Christmas show for Covent Garden’s subterranean studio theatre, Ben Duke, who admits to being “naturally contrary”, sidestepped Hoffmann, Grimm, Andersen and Dickens and opted for Medea: the Greek anti-heroine so traumatised by her husband’s infidelity that she murdered both of their children. Happily, Duke’s playful, at times schoolboyish sense of humour leavens this heavyweight material. The occasional longueurs in this artful blend of movement and spoken text are enlivened by charismatic performances and some fine passages of pure dance.

Ruination begins in the underworld where Hades (a crisp, camp Jean-Daniel Broussé) greets new arrivals and archly reminds us that The Nutcracker is playing upstairs in the main house: “This is the bit where Clara is thinking about using the nutcracker as a sex toy.” His first guest is Jason (Liam Francis), lying on a hospital gurney under a plastic sheet, who twitches back to life in a virtuoso solo delivered with cockeyed bravura. Jason wants “full custody of the children in the afterlife” but Medea (Hannah Shepherd) has other ideas, triggering a courtroom battle in which Hades and his consort Persephone (Anna-Kay Gayle) become warring counsels with the Linbury audience as jury.

The couple’s story is told in flashback. Medea, daughter of King Aeëtes (a splendid and oddly touching Miguel Altunaga), helps Jason complete the impossible tasks that will win him her father’s golden fleece. She begins by fireproofing him with special ointment, a move that requires Francis to remove all his clothes (Christmas came early for many in the audience) enabling her to anoint every inch as a prelude to their powerful duet: steamy but never sleazy.

The same tightrope is navigated in the thrilling exchange between Jason and his new love Glauce (Maya Carroll), which hints at sexual heat without ever resorting to dry-humping. Duke’s writing for the ensembles is equally strong, notably an up-tempo routine to Bobby Darin’s rendition of Kurt Weill’s “Mack the Knife”.

Jason and Medea with the fleece and embark on a life of connubial tedium (“How did you survive?” “Medea taught Pilates; I did some acting”). It’s a reprise of the glum lives Duke envisaged for his 2018 Juliet and Romeo in which the lovers escape death but end miserably in couples therapy. There is a danger that reducing these massive operatic scenarios to the everyday — Medea’s “murder” of her rival is actually down to a peanut allergy — will diminish the mysterious force of the original.

Yshani Perinpanayagam’s eclectic, almost random playlist — anything from George Harrison to Handel — includes numbers for meaty countertenor Keith Pun and the soulful Sheree Dubois. Soutra Gilmour’s design — two doorways, a few old TVs, an enigmatic ladder to heaven — is dramatised by Jackie Shemesh’s smart, no-nonsense lighting. A water cooler lurks upstage in its own baby spotlight like a telephone in a thriller. It contains the waters of Lethe, traditionally drunk by those who would rather forget. By the end of her 100-minute ordeal Medea — victim, not villainess — is suddenly very thirsty indeed.

★★★★☆

To December 31, roh.org.uk