A lot more emotional resonance than you might expect: Jonathan Dove & Alasdair Middleton’s Itch return to Opera Holland Park shows it is more than a rattling good yarn

Jonathan Dove: Itch – Xavier Hetherington – Opera Holland Park (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Jonathan Dove & Alasdair Middleton: Itch; Xavier Hetherington, Natasha Agarwal, Rebecca Bottone, Victoria Simmonds, Eric Greene, Robert Burt, James Hall, director: Stephen Barlow, City of London Sinfonia, conductor: Matt Scott Rogers; Opera Holland Park
Reviewed 6 June 2025

Dove’s Itch returns with Xavier Hetherington successfully drawing us into the engaging mix of family , heroes and villains, and mythic drama with real emotional resonance

Jonathan Dove‘s Itch, with libretto by Alasdair Middleton based on Simon Mayo‘s books, debuted at Opera Holland Park in 2023 [see my review] in a production by Stephen Barlow. This has now been revived as Opera Holland Park’s second production of its 2025 season. Matt Scott Rogers (assistant conductor in 2023) conducts the City of London Sinfonia, this time Xavier Hetherington as Itch (Itchingham Lofte), also new to the cast was James Hall as Cake and Berghahn, plus Natasha Agarwal, Rebecca Bottone, Victoria Simmonds, Eric Greene, Nicholas Garrett and Robert Burt returning to their roles. We caught the second performance on 6 June 2025.

I have never read Simon Mayo’s books, but Alasdair Middleton and Jonathan Dove have created a rattling good yarn that manages to bowl along, carrying you away with it, rooting for the good characters and wanting to boo the bad ones. Even second time around, when we knew what was coming, the work drew you in and the ending when Eric Greene’s Nicholas Lofte (Itch’s father) rescues his son, brought a lump to the throat. That is part of Dove’s skill. 

Sometimes his music can feel slightly too close to primary colours (nearer to Sondheim than Britten), but here he manages to give most of the major characters moments of real emotion, short aria-like monologues where we hear their personal thoughts. This helps a lot as the basic characters are all stereotypes, which of course, makes the plot easier to follow and means that Middleton’s libretto does leave plenty of space for Dove’s music.

That said, there remain somewhat unsatisfactory elements. The opening scenes, where Itch (Xavier Hetherington) expounds his obsession with the elements, characterising each one, and counterpointed by more realistic comments from his mother, Jude (Rebecca Bottone) and sister, Jack (Natasha Agarwal), are dazzling in the way Dove manages to bring to life what threatens to be rather dry, helped by Stephen Barlow’s imaginative use of Frankie Bradshaw’s set. But the real drama does take a bit to get going, and then in the second act, which really does rattle along, you become aware of the plot holes. Ultimately, the music carries you away. What if Eric Greene’s role as Nicholas is woefully underwritten with gaps in our knowledge about his background, his final scene rescuing his son is moving indeed. Similarly, Rebecca Bottone’s Jude disappears from the action rather quickly, but this is because Bottone is doing double duty as Roshanna Wing, one of the villains of the piece, and as Roshanna, Bottone clearly has the time of her life, so we do too.

Jonathan Dove: Itch – James Hall & Rebecca Bottone as Berghahn & Roshanna Wing – Opera Holland Park (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Itch might be a teenage boy but his role is most definitely written for an adult singer and Xavier Hetherington [whom we saw last year in Gilbert & Sullivan’s Ruddigore at Opera North, see my review, and Handel’s Esther with Solomon’s Knot, see my review] brought the right mix of nerdy introspection and tenorial heft to the role. Hetherington has the voice to make the more dramatic passages soar, whilst making us aware of Itch’s sheer focus on the elements because, well, people are difficult when you are a teenager. Hetherington successfully drew us along through the plot and carried us away towards the end when the drama turns mythic (Itch descending into the earth to return the new element to its rightful place).

Following him almost every step of the way and providing a perky commentary to his introspection was Natasha Agarwal as the wonderfully engaging Jack, Itch’s sister. Compulsively light-fingered, and always having Itch’s back despite the two bickering constantly, Agarwal was delightful yet in her early solo provided emotional resonance too. 

As their mother, Rebecca Bottone was engagingly natural, her role as final arbiter in the debacle of Itch setting fire to himself (the scene that opens the opera) was finely done and we rather missed her presence as Jude from the later parts of the opera. This was compensated for by Bottone’s assumption of the role of Roshanna Wing, trouser suit, power heels and killer high notes combining with a terrifically in your face performance that had you wanting to boo from her first moments. It wasn’t subtle, but oh boy was this terrific music theatre. The way Bottone combined her dramatic high notes with her physical presence made this music and movement of this highest order.

Jonathan Dove: Itch – Xavier Hetherington, Nicholas Garrett – Opera Holland Park (Photo: Craig Fuller)

The portrayal of Itch and Jack’s father Nicholas very much relied on the way Eric Greene was able to establish our sympathy for him from the word go. Greene sang the role with a real sense of the personal, he was invested in the role so we were too. This built during Greene’s small appearances through the opera until the climactic and emotional final scene.

Victoria Simmonds was the eminently sensible Watkins, Itch and Jack’s teacher, a regular and practical figure whose presence balanced the more highly coloured villains. Simmonds sang her with sympathy and a high degree of communicability so she never felt like a cypher.

Nicholas Garrett was the other key villain and like Bottone’s Roshanna Wing, Garrett’s Flowerdew was painted in strong colours. Relegated to teaching after overstepping the mark in Roshanna Wing’s GreenCorps, Garrett’s Flowerdew began with a solo which provided much needed depth and background which helped to colour our view of the character. 

James Hall played the dual roles of Cake and Berghahn. As beach dwelling hippy, Hall managed to create a real sense of character in a few short scenes, helped by the fact that he seemed to be having real fun. Thanks to what were probably a few quick changes, Hall doubled as Roshanna Wing’s vicious sidekick, Berghahn, and again Hall created much out of little.

Jonathan Dove: Itch – Natasha Agarwal, Rebecca Bottone, Xavier Hetherington – Opera Holland Park (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Robert Burt played the owner of the local tin mine, now a heritage experience, and his character benefitted from a solo where he lamented the way his grandfather’s mine had gone along with the lifestyle around it. That is part of this opera’s charm, Dove and Middleton manage to mix a great deal in and it never feels indigestible. Burt returned as Flowerdew’s sidekick, Kinch. Again a small role, but a key one particularly in a stand-out scene in Act Two where Kinch’s monologue considering what he will do with his winnings where he fantasises about a bar on the Island of Mustique leads into a terrific fantasy sequence for Burt and Garratt as the two villains get high on the Xenon gas that Itch has let loose in the car.

In fact, there is no car but that doesn’t matter. Barlow’s use of Bradshaw’s set was consummate in the way the production conveyed a lot with very little. The fire effects and explosions were particularly effective, you don’t see these so often in opera productions and each had strong impact. Jack Henry James Fox’s video sequences helped to add atmosphere, but there was it too in the way the abbreviations for the elements were used to spell text.

As might be expected, Dove makes his 12 instruments work hard and there was never a moment when anything felt undernourished. In Matt Scott Rogers’ capable hands, the music flowed admirably, the orchestral writing contributing to the multi-layered feel of the emotional texture whilst having occasional hints of film scores. 

Jonathan Dove: Itch – Nicholas Garrett – Opera Holland Park (Photo: Craig Fuller)

In a way, it is clear that this opera was created for a specific purpose, to draw in those who might not usually go to the opera and provide something family friendly. Yet, Dove’s skill with the score means that there is a lot more emotional resonance than you might expect. He and Middleton have drawn on other iconic operatic myths so that we have a rattling good yarn designed to carry away families, yet with deeper musical dramas that draw in old stagers like myself.