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Glowing and unusual, Dave Malloy’s EDM-fuelled rock opera is a factor to marvel at – and eager observers have been ready for it to blaze throughout London’s darkish skies for fairly a while. Natasha, Pierre & The Nice Comet of 1812 started life in a small New York non-profit theatre a decade in the past, staged as a wild immersive occasion by Rachel Chavkin. Then it soared to Broadway, profitable a fan base that was devastated by its untimely closure. Now, it’s lighting up Donmar Theatre, in an intimate reimagining that lays naked its coronary heart – but additionally its flaws.
Lightbulbs flicker in entrance of every seat within the viewers, because the forged open with a prologue that’s a musical word-of-warning: “learn the programme”, they chant whereas introducing characters from half eight of Tolstoy’s famously mammoth novel Struggle and Peace with the simplicity of children singing spherical a campfire. Such a warning isn’t mandatory. It’s marvellously clear within the arms of recent Donmar inventive director Timothy Sheader, who beforehand spent 17 years turning Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre right into a musical theatre powerhouse.
In case you’re vainly looking your reminiscence for an inkling of Tolstoy’s story, right here goes: famed for her magnificence, the titular Natasha (Chumisa Dornford-Might) and her pal Sonya (Maimuna Memon) arrive in Moscow for a dose of cultural sophistication whereas they wait for his or her husbands-to-be to return from the warfare. Depressed, cuckolded Pierre (Declan Bennett) retains an eye fixed on them, however he can’t defend Natasha from his ne’er-do-well brother Anatole (Jamie Muscato), who bombards her with consideration and drags her into Moscow’s sordid, adulterous underbelly.
Malloy’s virtually totally sung-through musical is a masterclass in prosody, with its often-thin lyrics given emotional heft and depth by orchestration selections, which elicit their that means. When Natasha has a painfully awkward assembly along with her betrothed’s disapproving sister, their “constrained and strained” interplay turns into a discordant feline screech. There’s no such discomfort when Anatole corners her on the opera, with martial drums beating like her pounding coronary heart as he phases a navy coup on her advantage.
The place so many West Finish musicals serve up a pappy, poppy sonic menu, Malloy’s music is an exhilaratingly wealthy and chewy mix of Russian sacred music, EDM and indie rock. And right here, Sheader has assembled an excellent crew of singers to match it. Dornford-Mays’ vocals go well with this candy ingenue with out feeling sickly, bringing heartbreaking poignancy to torch track “No One Else”. Singer-songwriter Bennett has a rough-edged magnificence as weary Pierre, bringing the home down with the self-loathing ballad “Mud and Ashes”. Memon shines most of all, lending an fringe of open throated slavic white voice to a scene on the opera, and a compellingly husky word of hard-won knowledge to “Sonya Alone”. It’s a stonkingly good rating, complicated with out sacrificing its catchiness or skill to clutch at your coronary heart and throat.
Sheader’s manufacturing excels in its occasion scenes, creating gleefully queer, ludicrously costumed and fully modern-feeling swirls of need and disinhibition – so it’s a disgrace that the story that doesn’t absolutely grip you in the identical method, held again by its many overly expository moments (we certainly don’t want a full track explaining that individuals used to jot down letters) and silences at vital moments – we don’t fairly really feel the complete weight of why Natasha’s actions are so scandalous, in a society the place marriage appears like an outdated formality. Natasha can be aged down right here, singing whereas sprawled throughout a large pink teddy, whereas Pierre is aged up – including a discomfiting and underexplored really feel to their bond.
Even so, that is musical theatre that looks like an occasion, uncommon and thrilling to witness. Definitely, it deserves to burn shiny within the West Finish for years to return.
‘Natasha, Pierre & The Nice Comet of 1812’ is on on the Donmar theatre till 8 February 2025; more information and tickets here.
