Walking into the Opera House for the opening night of Sunset Boulevard felt like stepping back in time to the glitzy world of 1950’s Hollywood. Retro glam was the unofficial dress code – sequins, mink coats and ballgowns could be seen everywhere. As the lights faded and the orchestra began their grand, brassy overture, it was clear we were going to be in for a theatrical extravaganza.
Directed for Opera Australia by Paul Warwick Griffin, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical is a tale of artistic ambition, lost youth and Hollywood extravagance. At the heart of the story is Norma Desmond (Sarah Brightman), a notorious silent film star who is haunted by the unfulfilled dreams of her youth. When she meets Joe Gillis (Tim Draxl), a struggling Hollywood screenwriter, the pair form an unlikely relationship that quickly spirals into a dangerous pattern of codependency. While Norma relies on Joe to add meaning to her lonely life on Sunset Boulevard, Joe becomes too comfortable with the luxurious lifestyle Norma provides for him.
Brightman, one of the world’s most celebrated soprano voices, was mesmerising as Norma Desmond. She performed the role with an air of excessive melodrama while still managing to make us empathise with Norma’s loneliness. Her opening solo, ‘New Ways to Dream’, gave the audience the opportunity to experience the clear, delicate quality of Brightman’s voice for which she is renowned. While the higher sections of the piece sounded more unstable, these moments created a sense of intimacy that allowed insight into Norma’s fragility.
The distinctly Gothic style of the set (Morgan Large) enhanced the melodramatic elements of Brightman’s performance. The stage’s central piece was a grand, spiral staircase that provided Brightman with ample opportunities to play with her character’s histrionic personality, serving as a platform for extravagant entries and verbose soliloquies, such as Norma’s famous closing line, “Mr DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”
The use of large-scale animated graphics (George Reeve) was another key feature of the set and was used to create necessary links between key scenes. Using black-and-white footage and chiaroscuro lighting, these graphics paid homage to Billy Wilder’s original film and even re-created a few of his most iconic scenes. Despite these efforts to bridge together the story’s disparate settings and timeframes, there were moments when the musical felt rushed. An audience unfamiliar with Wilder’s film may find it difficult to keep up.
Draxl’s powerful performance as Joe Gillis was an equal match for Brightman’s Norma. His robust tenor voice traversed an extensive pitch and stylistic range, heard most prominently in his titular solo, Sunset Boulevard. In this piece, Draxl met the demands of the dramatic high-pitched vibrato notes with confident ease, while also managing to restrain himself in the recitative sections of the song which required a breathy, more whispered style. These sudden shifts in mood were mirrored by the orchestra, which provided a brass-led swing accompaniment that enhanced the glitzy Hollywood mood.
It is only disappointing that there weren’t more of these kinds of soloistic performances for the other leading characters, such as Norma’s enigmatic ex-husband-come-butler Max, played by the fittingly elusive Robert Grubb. The musical was based largely on flashy chorus songs, like ‘Let’s Have Lunch’ and ‘Every Movie’s A Circus’. While these chorus songs were certainly a feast for the senses with rich vocal harmonies and meticulous choreography (Ashley Wallen) that evoked the manic energy of 1950’s Hollywood, they lacked enough distinguishing features to set them apart from each other.
Despite the musical’s somewhat repetitive structure, the chemistry between Joe and Betty Schaffer (Ashleigh Rubenach) was enough to sustain our interest into the second act. At just twenty-two, Betty represents the idealism of old Hollywood. She refuses to compromise her artistic vision for the sake of flashy “talkies” that will sell, instead aspiring to write a film that is moving and true. Joe quickly puts an end to her youthful idealism: “Moving is starving and true means holes in your shoes”, he sings.
Draxl and Rubenach capture their characters’ blossoming love in a way that feels authentic, particularly seen in their duet ‘Too Much Love’, where their voices blend in spine-tingling harmonies. In this scene, the pair are shrouded in a large, translucent curtain which is used ingeniously by lighting designer Mark Henderson to create a sense of intimacy, a challenging feat given the theatre’s open layout.
Opera Australia has truly captured the spirit of Sunset Boulevard, creating an unforgettable spectacle that embodies 1950’s Hollywood in all its glamorous excess.
Sunset Boulevard is showing now at the Sydney Opera House until November 1.
