Phantoms and the Opera -- Presented by the Bermuda National Trust in the Keep Yard of the Bermuda Maritime Museum -- June 24. The huge, grassy Keep Yard of the Maritime Museum provided a suitably atmospheric setting for an evening of entertainment billed as `Phantoms and the Opera'.

The occasion, part of the Bermuda National Trust's 25th birthday celebrations, brought people from every walk of life together for this convivial evening "under the stars''. These last, in fact, were conspicuously absent in a sky that remained hauntingly black, with the odd shower or two threatening the entire proceedings. Undaunted, hundreds of people turned up with picnics, chairs and even tables.

John White's compilation of Dockyard history, adapted for a theatrical reading, confirmed that the master behind those irreverent `Um Um' shows has lost none of his satirical bite. He selected three ghosts from Bermuda's past -- Sir Alexander Cochrane who assembled 100 warships and 8,000 men at Dockyard to attack Washington (and burn down the White House); Hazekiah Frith, perhaps over-politely referred to as a `gentleman' privateer who, as a successful collector of lucrative bounties on the high seas, was reputedly just as successful in his pursuit of women; and Mariana Steed `Marm' Hill, a free black woman who found her way into Bermuda's history books as an astute business woman who took advantage of the blockade runners by creating the Island's first lunch wagon business in St. George's.

Draped in ghostly garments, Brian Webb (Cochrane), Gavin Wilson (Hezekiah) and Patricia Pogson (`Marm' Hill) engaged in some humorous repartee, guaranteed to keep the audience laughing with their respective accents.

Webb found himself playing the `straight' man with his `stiff upper-lip' demeanour of the Royal Navy top brass -- or as Gavin Wilson put it, in best Island vernacular, "them Bermuda Navy boys''. There was a similar refusal to be impressed on the part of Marm Hill, who pointed out that, in this `spiritual' encounter, she had expected to be meeting with THE Lord, not a lord, after which she stubbornly referred to his eminence as `Cockbrain'.

This trio of leading actors brought wry comedy and warmth to what could have been a fairly dry recounting of the milestones in the Dockyard's history, which, in spite of (or perhaps because of) its massive fortifications, never actually saw any active warfare. There were, of course, not-so-oblique references to the Referendum and other political peccadillos thrown in for good measure.

Before `catching the elevator' back from whence they came, the trio exhorted the audience to `Listen to the Music of the Night'. Which, after a diversionary shower which transformed the Keep to an updated version of Renoir's `Parapluies', is what we did.

Bermudian soprano Marcelle Clamens showed no sign of the nervous tension which the rain factor must have wrought, as she swept effortlessly into the Mandoline song by Gabriel Faure. In spite of a less than perfect sound system (maybe it was affected by the damp conditions), she was accompanied with great sensitivity by Karol Sue Reddington on the piano, in a quintet of `art' songs.

This was highlighted by Clamens' impressive account of Schubertian trills in the lovely `Liebe Schwarmt auf allen Wegen'.

She came into her own, however, with `Summertime' from Gershwin's `Porgy and Bess', confirming the sensational purity of tone in those opening, soaring bars. She seemed less at ease in the murderously difficult `Quandm'en vo' from `La Boheme', but even so, her high notes are show-stopping. The wistful reflection of the Countess's aria from the second act of `The Marriage of Figaro' (which Marcelle Clamens sang recently for an opera workshop at her Cincinnati Conservatory) was beautifully captured. Finally, there was the ever-popular selection of Negro Spirituals, and another touch of unintentional humour here with her choice of `Didn't It Rain', and ending with a rousing rendition of `He's Got the Whole World'.

The radiant stage presence which is one of Clamens' brightest attributes was largely lost, however, because for some reason, the audience was placed much too far back from the performers. A point easily rectified in what is a potentially magnificent locale for future concerts.

Patricia Calnan Soprano Marcelle Clamens REVIEW