Recently in Performances

ETO Autumn 2020 Season Announcement: Lyric Solitude

English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.

Love, always: Chanticleer, Live from London … via San Francisco

This tenth of ten Live from London concerts was in fact a recorded live performance from California. It was no less enjoyable for that, and it was also uplifting to learn that this wasn’t in fact the ‘last’ LfL event that we will be able to enjoy, courtesy of VOCES8 and their fellow vocal ensembles (more below …).

Dreams and delusions from Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper at Wigmore Hall

Ever since Wigmore Hall announced their superb series of autumn concerts, all streamed live and available free of charge, I’d been looking forward to this song recital by Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper.

Treasures of the English Renaissance: Stile Antico, Live from London

Although Stile Antico’s programme article for their Live from London recital introduced their selection from the many treasures of the English Renaissance in the context of the theological debates and upheavals of the Tudor and Elizabethan years, their performance was more evocative of private chamber music than of public liturgy.

A wonderful Wigmore Hall debut by Elizabeth Llewellyn

Evidently, face masks don’t stifle appreciative “Bravo!”s. And, reducing audience numbers doesn’t lower the volume of such acclamations. For, the audience at Wigmore Hall gave soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn and pianist Simon Lepper a greatly deserved warm reception and hearty response following this lunchtime recital of late-Romantic song.

The Sixteen: Music for Reflection, live from Kings Place

For this week’s Live from London vocal recital we moved from the home of VOCES8, St Anne and St Agnes in the City of London, to Kings Place, where The Sixteen - who have been associate artists at the venue for some time - presented a programme of music and words bound together by the theme of ‘reflection’.

Iestyn Davies and Elizabeth Kenny explore Dowland's directness and darkness at Hatfield House

'Such is your divine Disposation that both you excellently understand, and royally entertaine the Exercise of Musicke.’

Paradise Lost: Tête-à-Tête 2020

‘And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven … that old serpent … Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.’

Joyce DiDonato: Met Stars Live in Concert

There was never any doubt that the fifth of the twelve Met Stars Live in Concert broadcasts was going to be a palpably intense and vivid event, as well as a musically stunning and theatrically enervating experience.

‘Where All Roses Go’: Apollo5, Live from London

‘Love’ was the theme for this Live from London performance by Apollo5. Given the complexity and diversity of that human emotion, and Apollo5’s reputation for versatility and diverse repertoire, ranging from Renaissance choral music to jazz, from contemporary classical works to popular song, it was no surprise that their programme spanned 500 years and several musical styles.

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields 're-connect'

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields have titled their autumn series of eight concerts - which are taking place at 5pm and 7.30pm on two Saturdays each month at their home venue in Trafalgar Square, and being filmed for streaming the following Thursday - ‘re:connect’.

Lucy Crowe and Allan Clayton join Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO at St Luke's

The London Symphony Orchestra opened their Autumn 2020 season with a homage to Oliver Knussen, who died at the age of 66 in July 2018. The programme traced a national musical lineage through the twentieth century, from Britten to Knussen, on to Mark-Anthony Turnage, and entwining the LSO and Rattle too.

Choral Dances: VOCES8, Live from London

With the Live from London digital vocal festival entering the second half of the series, the festival’s host, VOCES8, returned to their home at St Annes and St Agnes in the City of London to present a sequence of ‘Choral Dances’ - vocal music inspired by dance, embracing diverse genres from the Renaissance madrigal to swing jazz.

Royal Opera House Gala Concert

Just a few unison string wriggles from the opening of Mozart’s overture to Le nozze di Figaro are enough to make any opera-lover perch on the edge of their seat, in excited anticipation of the drama in music to come, so there could be no other curtain-raiser for this Gala Concert at the Royal Opera House, the latest instalment from ‘their House’ to ‘our houses’.

Fading: The Gesualdo Six at Live from London

"Before the ending of the day, creator of all things, we pray that, with your accustomed mercy, you may watch over us."

Met Stars Live in Concert: Lise Davidsen at the Oscarshall Palace in Oslo

The doors at The Metropolitan Opera will not open to live audiences until 2021 at the earliest, and the likelihood of normal operatic life resuming in cities around the world looks but a distant dream at present. But, while we may not be invited from our homes into the opera house for some time yet, with its free daily screenings of past productions and its pay-per-view Met Stars Live in Concert series, the Met continues to bring opera into our homes.

Precipice: The Grange Festival

Music-making at this year’s Grange Festival Opera may have fallen silent in June and July, but the country house and extensive grounds of The Grange provided an ideal setting for a weekend of twelve specially conceived ‘promenade’ performances encompassing music and dance.

Monteverdi: The Ache of Love - Live from London

There’s a “slide of harmony” and “all the bones leave your body at that moment and you collapse to the floor, it’s so extraordinary.”

Music for a While: Rowan Pierce and Christopher Glynn at Ryedale Online

“Music for a while, shall all your cares beguile.”

A Musical Reunion at Garsington Opera

The hum of bees rising from myriad scented blooms; gentle strains of birdsong; the cheerful chatter of picnickers beside a still lake; decorous thwacks of leather on willow; song and music floating through the warm evening air.

OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »

Performances

Scene from Alcina [Photo © A.T. Schaefer]
17 Feb 2013

Stuttgart: Too Hot to Handel

With its staging of Alcina, Stuttgart Opera seems to set out to prove that George Friedrich Handel can be all ‘sexypants.’

Stuttgart: Too Hot to Handel

A review by James Sohre

Above: Scene from Alcina [Photo © A.T. Schaefer]

 

To that end, directors Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito have gotten their willing cast to rather uninhibitedly caress, nuzzle, hug, stroke and roll around on occasion in various combinations, and even include strong impressions that a patriarchal pederast is sodomizing two of the boys. To paraphrase a Bacharach title song for a Michael Caine film: “What’s it all about, Alcina?”

And like the plot of Alfie, the story here seemed to be reduced to thoughtless couplings, self-gratification, and a modicum of come-uppance. But is that enough? The complex, dense plot features a sorceress (Alcina) and her long-suffering-also-a-sorceress-sister (Morgana); a knight (Ruggiero) looking for his beloved but who gets side-tracked/bewitched by the titular witch; a boy (Oronte) looking for his long lost father (Astolfo); the sister’s jilted lover (Oberto), and a cross-dressing woman (Bradamante) who is impersonating her own brother to find her lover Ruggiero who now loves Alcina. Throw in the hero’s former tutor (Melisso) and the fact that two of the ‘men’ are sung by women (not counting the cross-dresser) and you get some idea of the challenges to comprehension of the plotting.

What is needed in the direction and visual presentation is utter clarity to lead us through the tale’s rich character relationships. Alas, what we got was confusing blocking and unmotivated stage business that led us ever further from honest confrontations and down a garden path to bewilderment. As we gave up on trying to understand who was wanting what from whom (and why), the piece was reduced to a string of stand-alone Da Capo arias that seemed to exist outside the drama rather than driving it.

The sense of sameness was not helped by staging choices that kept getting re-cycled like hugging the walls, languishing on the floor, taking off clothes, and the like. Nor was designer Anna Viebrock’s unit setting evocative or particularly attractive. It consisted of a decaying drawing room box set with aging gold damask wallpaper and a single double door up left.

Upstage, a giant, empty gilt frame dominated the space, suggesting at times a mirror, at others a portal to the psyche. In the up right corner was a pile of, well, junk: pieces of swords, battered musical instruments, an old drawing room chair, some pottery, some armor. These got passed around, kicked around, and thrown around with regularity if without much reason.

Behind the frame, a treadmill sometimes bore a performer across from right to disappear left, and the wallpapered backdrop tracked to and fro revealing some wall accessories like a coat rack, wall lamp or . . .shhhhh. . .a secret door. Ooooh. A secret door. A lurking old man (shhhh, it’s Astolfo) peeked through at several times to inject a Fear Factor. Or at least an Ick Factor. At other times, characters might appear waltzing together, or commiserating, or well, just observing. A real problem with this floor plan is there are only two ways into the playing space: either through the door, or over the frame from the upstage Time Out Room.

Too, the overall pace was not helped by limiting the evening to one intermission, and that after Act Two, Scene Three, making the second ‘sit’ much longer than the first. ‘Act Three’ also experienced three complete blackouts, one after Alcina is shot dead (yes, shot) which deflated the momentum at a time the piece could ill afford it.

Ms. Vriebock’s modern day costumes only hit the mark with her elegant black gowns for Alcina. The real men looked dapper enough in their suits; well that is until Oronte did a strip tease during his aria, sitting on a step in his briefs and kicking up his (bare) feet like Esther Williams about to go under water. The same male attire did not serve the men-women well, making the lanky, pony-tailed, bespectacled Bradamante look like Olive Oyl in drag; and accenting, not hiding all of Ruggiero’s womanly assets. Hard to suspend our disbelief when your ‘hero’ has willfully undisguised child-bearing hips.

Musically, Stuttgart Opera has fielded a top notch team of soloists, a superb group of instrumentalists, and a stylish and stylistically savvy conductor who was in joyous command of his resources. From the downbeat of the overture the pit orchestra promised both effervescent delights and characterful illumination. They could not have been bettered, and Michael Groß’s conscientious cello work was the stand-out among equals.

Netta Or has all the right stuff to sing an assured Alcina: a pointed and pliable soprano, a winning way of caressing a melting phrase, and a sound technique allowing her to deliver her every varied musical intention. Ms. Or is also possessed of a lovely, poised stage presence; in short, she has the requisite “star quality.”

In spite of being handicapped by her unhelpful costume and rather short stature (or perhaps because of it?), Diana Haller sang the living snot out of Ruggiero. Ms. Haller, has a nice edge to her essentially lyric mezzo, and she zings out coloratura like Sosa hitting it out of the ballpark. Her acting is committed and her characterization is well considered. In addition to the impressive vocal fireworks, Diana could also turn it all inward and touch our hearts with deeply felt moments of repose and introspection.

As Bradamante, Marina Prudenskaya’s softer-grained, mellower tone was a nice complement to Ruggiero’s more incisive production. Ms. Prudenskaya also rose above her costume limitations to etch a believably desperate, and vocally secure performance. And when she was asked, twice, to tear open her white dress shirt to reveal a pink camisole (“I’m a girl, get it, a girl?”) she performed the stage business with conviction.

As Oronte, Stanley Jackson proved to be not only a willing collaborator in shedding his clothes, but managed to perform all that silliness while regaling us with poised singing of real distinction. Mr. Jackson has a clear, forward-placed tenor that offers much pleasure, and he proves to be an enormously engaging performer. He is equaled by the statuesque Morgana, strongly sung by Ana Durlovski. Her liquid soprano almost defines the word “silvery” and her tireless flights above the staff were ravishingly accurate.

Opera Studio Syliva Rena Ziegler was a believably boyish Oberto. If the young Ms. Ziegler’s assured dispatch of her tricky arias is any proof, the Studio is turning out exciting artists of great promise. Michael Ebbeke sang with refinement as Melisso, although his thuggish, hit man characterization was in odds with his smooth bass singing.
Siegfried Laukner was a “bonus” as Astolfo, who was brought in as a presence to tie up the back story of the plot. However, since the entire original tale has been eliminated and re-interpreted for psycho-sexual purposes, really what was the point?

And here is the pity: a superior group of performers was largely wasted by not being able to effectively communicate the sense of Handel’s opera to an audience composed of patrons overwhelmingly unfamiliar with this seldom-performed, knotty work. It’s not that this Alcina is an unprofessional staging. It is just the wrong one.

James Sohre

Click here for a slideshow.

Cast and production information:

Alcina: Netta Or; Ruggiero, Diana Haller; Morgana, Ana Durlovski; Bradamante: Marina Prudenskaya; Oronte: Stanley Jackson; Melisso: Michael Ebbeke; Oberto: Sylvia Rena Ziegler; Astolfo: Siegfried Laukner; Conductor: Sébastien Rouland; Directors: Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito; Set and Costume Design: Anna Viebrock; Cembalo: Yvon Repérant; Theorbo: Johannes Vogt; Cello: Michael Groß

Send to a friend

Send a link to this article to a friend with an optional message.

Friend's Email Address: (required)

Your Email Address: (required)

Message (optional):