Kiss Me, Kate, by Opera North, Leeds Grand Theatre

COLE Porter’s delectable ‘Shakespearean’ musical play is a pinnacle of the postwar golden era of American musical theatre.

The setting is a sweaty old theatre in downtown Baltimore where supremely arrogant actor-manager Fred Graham pushes his troupe of strolling players to the limit and battles with his co-star and ex-wife Lilli Vanessi. Everyone is rehearsing for the opening night of a touring production of The Taming of the Shrew. The bustling opening ensemble Another Op’nin, Another Show perfectly sets the tone. Fred and Lilli’s gorgeous Wunderbar, Lilli’s yearning So in Love, and Fred’s tyrade Where is the Life that Late I Led, are typical of the operatic style of songs written for the sparring romantic leads.

One of the glories of Jo Davies’ sizzling production for Opera North - first staged at Leeds Grand in 2015 and directed for this revival by Ed Goggin - is David Charles Abel’s restoration of the original musical score. He has reinstated a five-saxophone swing in Too Darn Hot, and a brilliant tap dance written for the original London production. Abel conducted the initial run of Leeds performances from his loving reconstruction of Robert Russell Bennett’s and Don Walker’s lost orchestrations for the 1948 New York premiere. The original Broadway pit band is doubled in size by the Orchestra of Opera North’s opulent strings to a luxurious fifty musicians, conducted in this revival with tremendous pace by James Holmes.

Several of the 2015 cast reprise their roles - notably the burnished toned Quirijn de Lang as Fred Graham. Joseph Shovelton and John Savournin return as the gangsters whose Brush up Your Shakespeare is everyone’s favourite number. Stefanie Corley’s assumption of Lillie Vanessi and the volcanic Kate is a triumph - the perfect foil for Lang’s lofty Petruchio. As the ‘second couple’ Zoe Rainey’s Louis Lane and Alan Birkitt’s tap dancing Bill Calhoun are a delight.

The entire production is a visual feast, bathed as it is in the glow of tungsten light bulbs - EU bureaucrats seeking to force theatres to use cold LED lighting, kindly note. A vibrant cast of fifty singers and dancers is dressed circa 1940s or in sumptuous Elizabethan frocks, cloaks, lace ruffs and tights.

To paraphrase the racy song We Open in Venice - the Kiss Me Kate company opened in Leeds, they next play Ravenna, then on to London. Their last jump is Edinburgh.

Geoffrey Mogridge