{"id":10187,"date":"2026-03-02T17:28:45","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T16:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/?p=10187"},"modified":"2026-03-02T17:28:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T16:28:45","slug":"grimeborn-2025-jane-eyre-arcola-london-the-reviews-hub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2026\/03\/02\/grimeborn-2025-jane-eyre-arcola-london-the-reviews-hub\/","title":{"rendered":"Grimeborn 2025: Jane Eyre \u2013 Arcola, London. The Reviews Hub"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reviewer: Phoebe Taplin<\/div>\n
\"TheBy<\/span>\u00a0The Reviews Hub – London<\/a><\/span><\/i>No Comments<\/a><\/span><\/i>4 Mins Read<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Laura Mekhail photo Camilla Greenwell<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Composer \u2013 John Joubert<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Libretto \u2013 Kenneth Birkin<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director \u2013 Eleanor Burke<\/strong><\/p>\n

Conductor: Kenneth Woods<\/strong><\/p>\n

Orphaned Jane is forced to live with her abusive relatives and locked in a terrifying red room, then sent to strict Lowood school, where her only close friend dies of consumption. These opening sections of Charlotte Bront\u00eb\u2019s celebrated novel are already traumatic memories. The opera starts as Jane is leaving Lowood, where she is now a teacher, to become a governess at mysterious Thornfield Hall.<\/p>\n

This production makes musical history as the first staging of an opera that has only previously been heard in a concert hall. The characters wear full Victorian dress, but some sequences are symbolic rather than naturalistic. This operatic fever dream based on Bront\u00eb\u2019s\u00a0Jane Eyre\u00a0<\/em>assumes some knowledge of the original text, and the first half might be hard to follow if you hadn\u2019t at least skim-read a synopsis.<\/p>\n

Site-specific designer Emeline Beroud has hung several significant items on red ropes above the stage: keys, school books, maps, a wedding veil, a bare branch and a chalkboard with LIAR written on it. On the back, the chalkboard reads Helen Burns 1821-1835. These items, plus an old school desk, are the only set. Keys, red threads, and ropes are recurring motifs, variously representing the freedom, empowerment, disempowerment, fire\u2026<\/p>\n

The first distinct character we encounter is Bertha Mason, Edward Rochester\u2019s first wife, who is famously imprisoned in the attic. Contemporary dancer Steffi Fashokun gives a powerful, poignant and silently persuasive performance as the troubled and enigmatic Bertha. She is continually present throughout the first half on a mezzanine balcony, where she appears, like Penelope or the tower-bound Lady of Shalott, to be weaving a tapestry or visceral rag rug in various shades of red. Tapestry Maker Juliette Georges has created an extraordinary artwork for Fashokun to run mad with. Movement director Alex Gotch effectively creates an alternative narrative for her through expressive choreography.<\/p>\n

John Joubert\u2019s opera\u00a0Jane Eyre<\/em>, written over ten years in the late twentieth century with librettist Kenneth Birkin, premiered as a concert in 2016. This production, part of 2025\u2019s Grimeborn Festival, is its first full staging. It\u2019s an imaginative production, where psychological drama is more important than externalities. Egyptian soprano Laura Mekhail, as the eponymous Jane, has a soaring, emotional range. Her radiant directness embodies Bront\u00eb\u2019s revolutionary focus on her Jane\u2019s individual choices and experiences: \u201cI am a free human being, with an independent will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mekhail has a stillness and wonder about her as she watches the sunset, and a nice range of sceptical expressions as she listens to tenor Lawrence Thackeray (playing an impassioned St John Rivers) mansplaining God to the women around him. Baritone Hector Bloggs makes a sympathetic and vulnerable Rochester, and his love scenes with Jane are genuinely moving.<\/p>\n

Five other singers double up to play all the other characters, and Joubert\u2019s 35-strong orchestra has become a chamber ensemble. Thomas Ang has arranged the opera for string quartet, horn, and others, all sensitively led by Kenneth Woods, who also conducted the 2016 concert premiere.<\/p>\n

Director Eleanor Burke sees\u00a0Jane Eyre\u00a0<\/em>as a story of resistance and resilience in the face of systemic injustice and oppression. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about one woman\u2019s struggle,\u201d Burke tells Gramophone magazine. \u201cThe society around her \u2026 are all complicit.\u201d The words often illustrate these underlying themes (\u201cCast off your chains!\u201d sings Jane) rather than quoting directly from the novel. Spoken, they might sound trite, but the music transforms them into something transcendent. The duet between Jane and Rochester, which closes the first half, delicately echoes their shared love: \u201cto be alive, today, is wonderful, wonderful\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Runs until 9 August 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n