Any composition called “Marx in London,” especially when categorized as a comic opera, is more likely to encourage expectations of Groucho, Harpo and Chico than the ornery, orotund author of “The Communist Manifesto.”

Although Karl Marx spent many years in London, Jonathan Dove’s latest operatic endeavor, commissioned by Theater Bonn, focuses on just 24 hours of the philosopher’s domestically dysfunctional and financially chaotic sojourn as a subject of Queen Victoria in 1871. Dove claims to have been inspired by “Le Nozze di Figaro” but other than a few scenes contributing to this particular “folle journée” in Maitland Park Road NW3, further comparison is inutile.

A Survey of Characters & Style

Jürgen R. Weber’s original conception wisely opted not to present  the tenets of dialectic materialism in recitatives, arias and ensembles but rather reveal the less-familiar private life of the seriously flawed intellectual titan. Unlike Philip Glass’s virtually plot-less “Einstein on the Beach,” “Marx in London” is more akin to “Let’s Make an Opera” with immutable semi-stock characters and a dubious happy ending. Dove claims that each of the principal roles have their own individual sound such as Marx’s unsettled, ambivalent tri-tonal scale. His hysterical wife Jenny has various spinto leitmotivs whilst their theatre-struck daughter Tussi is characterized by a flamboyant coloratura vocal line reminiscent of Zerbinetta or Konstanze. 

There are Erda-ish sonorities for housekeeper Helene who spends more time sleeping in Marx’s bed than making it with the inevitable result of an illegitimate son called Freddy (not “Eynsford-Hill” but “Demuth”) who is more “My Fair Lady” than “Der Freischutz” despite the foundling’s preoccupation with firearms. Marx’s magnificently munificent benefactor Engels has a helden-baritone tessitura often in the heroic key of C major accompanied by fanfares of seraphim-like trumpets.

There are additional characters such as a Prussian spy who hovers overhead in a cute “Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines” contraption tapping a clickety-clack typewriter straight out of Leroy Anderson’s Remington-inspired opus. A sleazy pawnbroker bearing an unlikely resemblance to Johnny Depp accuses Marx of theft and a rich gold-prospector named Franz confuses more than clarifies the narrative. The most comic creation is a commedia del’arte rival revolutionary called Melanzane who turns out to be more homicidal than eggplant. Two “Pirates of Penzance” provenanced police officers complete the personae dramatis.

Semi-Slapstick Plus

Semi-slapstick comedy appears in the “Just a little drink” scena when Jenny and Helene get legless and bemoan the fate that brought them into contact with “anyone as gruff and unkempt and ungracious as Marx” accompanied  a bluesy, boozy wow-wow muted trumpet.  There is Feydeau-ish farce when Freddy emerges from a steamer trunk to save Marx from attempted assassination by Melanzane but his pistol misfires causing a chandelier to fall on top of the bombastic bungler. Certainly this is much closer to the Marx Brothers but there were very few guffaws or even giggles at the world premiere performance.

Charles Hart’s frequently rhyming-couplet libretto had several amusing lines such as “A thief/a Zulu chief?;” “Our kitchenware/my underwear” and after Melanzane screams “maledetti,” Marx responds with the delightfully politically incorrect “eyetie yeti.” Regrettably apart from Johannes Mertes’ Engels and David Fischer’s Spy, many of the best lines were lost due to desultory diction. There was a certain irony that the text could best be understood by reading the supra-titles in German.

Weber’s constantly moving stage set involved numerous railway flat-car modules which were pushed around by six surly sooty-faced laborers whose prominent pectorals and athletic physiques made them more like buffed gym-bunnies than scrawny Smike-like gamins – even with some unconvincing limping and hobbling. Despite Charles Hart’s bucolic ending, the disgruntled alpha-Aryan lackeys leveled pistols at the picnicking protagonists, predating the Communist revolution by nearly 50 years.  Hampstead Heath is also a long way from Petrograd.

The Greatest Strengths

The real strength of “Marx in London” is the highly inventive, intricate, and vibrant instrumental scoring. The opera requires a large orchestra, including 25 percussion instruments and there are manifold allusions to Glass, Bernstein, Sondheim, Britten and Williams, not forgetting Leroy Anderson. There are also cheeky discordant references to “An der schönen blauen Donau”; Chopin’s Op. 40 No.1 Polonaise and even the Tchaikovsky 1^st piano concerto when Tussi flaunts her fioratura at Freddy during a piano lesson.

Dove has his own “Ring” motiv but it is far more pedestrian than Alberich’s snaffled Rheingold, being a paltry napkin holder bearing the Westfalen family crest. Musically there is also nothing Wagnerian about it – the mystical celeste motif is directly derivative of John William’s “Hedwig” theme in the “Harry Potter” movies.

There is not a lot of music for chorus but it has considerable impact in every entry. The first trio for workers “Haul away Harry” smacked of “O heave away” from “Billy Budd” albeit with gritty NW3 smog, instead of salty sea air. One of the most effective scenes is the revolutionary dream sequence in the British Museum although the prolonged “Soon, soon” ensemble with the entire woodwind section chirping away sounded more like a “Les Misérables” chorus re-orchestrated by Philip Glass. The repeated fortissimo detached major sixth intervals on “Awake” were enough to stir the dead, let alone a dozing philosopher. The Chor des Theater Bonn was consistently vocally impressive and dramatically committed.

There was virtuoso playing from the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, bringing out the multiple sonorities of this complex, kleidescopic score. Brass and winds made memorable contributions whilst contrabassoon was happily gurgling and bubbling along. Dove’s scoring for strings, often split into major sixth intervals in quavers, was crisply played with commendable accuracy in intonation and dynamics. 

On the podium David Parry evinced great affection for the partitura and there was marked deference to the singers in keeping the orchestral decibels as restrained as possible. That said, there was plenty of roof-raising raucousness when required.

Impressive Showcases

There were impressive performances from tenor David Fischer as the airborne typewriter-tapping spy and baritone Di Yang sang a convincing Franz although the letter “i” was consistently mispronounced as “ee.”

Jonghoon You was a music-hall Melanzane who clearly relished the baroque opera parody roulades in “freedom and justice” with pompous trombone arpeggio obbligati. Boyan Di had malevolent menace as the wheelchair-bound pawnbroker. 

Johannes Mertes was musically and dramatically eloquent as Marx’s steadfast kumpel Engels. From his first 10 bar G-natural fermata on “ladies” it was clear Mertes’ vocal technique was much more reliable than the profligate philosopher’s impulses. There was sensitive phrasing in “My rock through thick and thin” and some solid sustained singing in “Comrades! The General has heard you.”

As Marx’s hard done by housekeeper, whose extra-curricular duties include playing chess and regular sexual favors, Ceri Williams brought a firm contralto and evenness of tone to the role of Helene. A tad matronly, Williams acted with restrained dignity and Margaret Dumont comic skills in the “Just a little drink” escapade. There were solid deep B-flats on “Frau Marx” and Resnik-rich low A-flats on “knee.”  The dramatically pivotal “Eighteen years ago” monologue was finely articulated with resonant repeated low G-flats on “it’s not for me to say.”

Christian Georg was also more than a few summers past the supposedly 18-year-old Freddy but brought a bright, forward placed tenor technique to the part. The lyrical “It’s not ideal” duet displayed a Rinuccio-ish timbre and appealing phrasing. There was a refulgent top B-flat fermata on “Farewell” before firing at Melanzane which fortunately was much more precise than the pistol shot.

The most virtuosic singing in score is written for Marx’s ditsy youngest daughter Tussi and the high coloratura demands were mostly met by Marie Heeschen. Just a few bars in Dove asks for a fortissimo top C-sharp followed by a B-flat major arpeggio starting on top D-natural, then some Queen of the Night runs reaching a stratospheric top F. The same galactic tessitura occurs during the Act two duet with Freddy, this time not just a chirp but a fully sustained four-bar top F-natural fermata on “shun.” Heeschen tended to be more strident than celestial, but dramatic commitment possibly justified the occasional squeak of metal.

The role of Marx’s semi-schizophrenic wife Jenny is the most interesting in the libretto and Yannick-Muriel Noah’s characterization combined feisty Fricka with pugnacious Pauline/Christine in Strauss’ “Intermezzo.” Her opening foot-stomping salvo describing Marx as an “out-written rotten rogue” had Brünnhilde bravura B-flats with a Nilsson-esque pungent top C-natural fermata on “debts.” Dove also gives Jenny some demanding top D-flats in the frenetic Act one closing ensemble. Noah managed the considerable vocal demands with distinction even if consonants were poorly articulated. “The dark is closing in” chromatic scena had fine vocalization, sustained mezzo voce and impressive word coloring.

The Main Man

According to Marx’s biographer Benjamin Blumberg, the celebrated philosopher was not a very pleasant person, perhaps due to a debilitating condition of aggravated boils. Carbuncles get a reference as Marx yelps in pain trying to sit down in the British Museum accompanied by dissonant fortissimo chords on trombones, bassoons and grating ratchet. The most telling exposé of the celebrated author of “Das Kapital” is when Jenny, Helene and Engels sing “What did he do/for those who saw him through?/fobbed us off/robbed us blind.” Hart’s raw libretto also reveals Marx’s contempt for his Communist comrades in “Freedom and justice my arse/that assembly was an utter fucking farce.”

American baritone Mark Morouse made a decent enough effort to portray the cantankerous father of Communism but came across as ineffectual and bland – if not downright boring. Morouse certainly looked the part with an enormous bushy Santa beard and well-fed girth but was vocally less than stellar. Americanised extended “r’s” at the end of many words were grating and far removed from Marx’s heavily German-accented English. Projection was often only proximate. The important “Always some setback” scena with its admission of a bourgeois fondness for Chinese dinner gongs, fine wine and Murano crystal failed to convince although there was more lyrical phrasing on “to end an evening with a song”. The climatic fortissimo F-natural on “Nightmare of a life” finally showed some Trier toughness and the oratorical “Wealth to the wealthy, torment to the poor” monologue had prophetic punch, especially the forceful climatic F-sharp on “ravenous machine”. There was much more gentle phrasing in the belated “Jenny, my Jenny” reconciliation scene.

The final verdict on “Marx in London” probably needs more time, but on first hearing it is not quite up to the standard of Dove’s earlier compositions such as “Flight” or even the bizarre Romanian porcine fantasy “The Enchanted Pig.” The problem is not in the immensely clever orchestration and complex vocal writing but in the subject matter itself, which is inherently unoperatic and inescapably unfunny.

Admittedly John Adams’ “Nixon in China” was also an unlikely topic for an opera, but its cast of corrupt and conniving characters was infinitely more fascinating than Marx’s crotchety circadian contretemps.

It could have been worse. One can only shudder at the prospect of Dove writing an opera about the punctilious private life of Immanuel Kant.