Opera Cabaret

By Richard Boon

When the High Street meets high culture, it’s the yearly return of a celebrated classy and classic hootenanny in the ‘hood.

‘There are singers everywhere in the community’, asserts Farquhar McKay, organiser of the Stoke Newington Opera Cabaret, which has become a more or less annual event since its beginning as part of the old Stoke Newington Midsummer Festival in 1996, ‘and the singers really like it’.

Early enthusiasm from performers and an increased and increasingly vocal audience (as we’ll later see) led to the Cabaret becoming a fixture of the Festival, seeing its then regular venue, the Assembly Rooms, transformed with colour-coordinated hangings and matching paper tablecloths. Until the Rooms’ closure (loss of the Council’s own licence on Health and Safety grounds), when the Cabaret had to become a movable feast.

After a subsequent gap year, the Cabaret was forced to find other venues, (including the Arcola Theatre, the Mildmay Club and Clapton’s Round Chapel), and other sponsors (previously including Holden Matthews – now Savills – John’s Garden Centre and, this year, Yum Yum). So the feast, indeed, moved. Inspired by the offering of interval strawberries and cream on one year at the Assembly Rooms, the audience began to bring their own, increasingly elaborate, picnics. (’Gourmet bollocks, of course’, Farquhar asides).

As a result, the Cabaret has had to introduce a 40-minute eating interval into its programme, which features ten or so thrilling young singers. The repertoire of popular opera extracts, Farquhar continues, ’gives singers a chance to sing a whole aria, and do ensemble work, which otherwise they would rarely get a chance to perform. We provide a unique opportunity for them to demonstrate the full range of their talents to a highly welcoming and appreciative audience.’

On expenses only (but presumably including a meal of sorts), past performers have included singers who have subsequently worked at the English National Opera (five) and taken the lead in Carmen Jones at the Royal Festival Hall (one only, obviously), and – a big hit with past audiences – six sopranos delivering a (slightly camp) rendition of ’The Ride of the Valkyries’ in raffia wigs and horned Viking helmets.
 
‘It belongs to the community, is of the community and is not transferable’, Farquhar insists, having spurned offers to restage or relocate it elsewhere. ’Both the performers and audience are determined to have a good time.’ One, encouraged by one of the Cabaret’s mainstays, its stalwart MC, the witty, contagiously enthusiastic and informative Adey Grummet (a tune’s history and context trips off her tongue), herself an opera singer of no mean repute.

Apart from Adey’s annual appearance – and that of Alenka Ponjavic, who has sung in every performance – the Cabaret has established its own traditions. For instance, all bar proceeds go to the Canon Collins Trust, which provides bursaries for Southern African students who otherwise have no access to education. Every show starts with Verdi’s ’Libiamo’ (better known as ‘The Drinking Song’ from ’La Traviata’) and ends with his ’Va Pensiero’ (otherwise ’The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves’) from ’Nabucco’. This latter being where the audience does indeed get vocal: it’s not that it’s over when the proverbial fat lady sings, but when the audience sings along. Join in (and remember to bring a picnic)!

The Stoke Newington Opera Cabaret, Saturday, 15 December, The Round Chapel, E5 0LY, 6.30 pm (doors at 6pm). Further information and ticket enquiries: farquharmckay@blueyonder.co.uk/07504 481184