Stiletto Review – A Lavish Spectacle That Trips Over Its Own Ambition

Stiletto | Charing Cross Theatre until 14th June

I was really looking forward to seeing this, a brand-new show with music by the composer of Disney’s Mulan, set in the 18th century, and it’s based on historical events. It has a unique premise dealing with male castrati.

The show attempts to centre on an adult male castrati, Marco, played admirably by Jack Chambers, amid a host of muddled subplots. In addition, it throws in a young servant girl, Giola, played by Jewelle Hutchison, who has to navigate the absurdities in the plot but sings up a storm! Add to that a couple of shady opera patrons involved in some financial shenanigans, a discarded tutor Faustino who is also in love with Marco, and a dubious cardinal, and you have some idea of the overstuffed plot!

The book, as a consequence, feels rushed and confused. The lyrics often seem like someone had a rhyming dictionary for Christmas, and the lyrics are too on the nose, “Lace & Satin / Songs in Latin,” for example. Rather than adding to the drama, these elements give the show a muddled feel that never settles into a clear tone.

The show sidelines the key theme of the castrati and almost trivialises it, we have an opening number that is reminiscent of the opening to Beauty & The Beast, which is upbeat with townsfolk enthusiastically singing about their lot, interspersed with Marco describing what happened to him as a boy.

In Italy during the 18th century, an average of 5,000 boys were castrated annually to preserve their singing voice, as at the time, as in England, women were not allowed to perform on stage. If either of these themes were explored more sensitively, we get crass jokes about “not getting it up”, it could have been an exploration and reflection on gender and power.

Instead, we are left with a mixture of unnecessary complications and unmotivated actions, quite why Marco is willing to step aside for Giola is not explained, other than that he is in love, and her final acceptance into society and being able to sing on stage is completely unbelievable given the times.

On top of all this, the show piles on race and an accidental death, in which the young female opera singer Giola is framed, as she has supposedly overheard the financial plotting of Pietro – but she didn’t actually do it because, to paraphrase Chicago, “he ran into her knife”!

If I were playing cliché bingo I would have shouted “house!” halfway through Act Two when the young castrati Nicolo, played by Connor Wood, who didn’t retain his singing voice and hadn’t said anything up to this point in the show – suddenly burst into song at a key dramatic moment!

On the positive side, the set and costumes are great, and the lighting is wonderful. The orchestration is brilliant, there’s not very often you see a harp on stage. The singing is superb, although they need to switch to a masked “Marco” for the opera sequences that are thrillingly sung by mezzo-soprano Jenni Jacobs. It looks and sounds gorgeous but comes crashing down to earth with the book, which the actors can’t overcome.

In order for it to work, I think they either need to treat the subject matter seriously and the consequences of what’s happening to these boys and the impact on them, or go completely the other direction and lean into it in the way that The Book of Mormon does, which deals with a very similar subject, but from the female perspective.

It is overcomplicated, and it tries to cover too much ground, and ends up being superficial. Whilst you admire the intention and ambition, sadly it is a bit like a callback to the eighties mega-musical but gone wrong.

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