Opera Holland Park

Antony McDonald, director of this production, puts a modern, mildly feminist spin on Richard Strauss’s opera-within-an-opera and it responds rather well. The thirty five minute prologue, which forms the first half, gives us a female composer (Julia Sporsen) in jeans falling in love with Zebinetta (Jennifer France) when the latter arrives with her Burlesque troupe and threatens the opera. Veteran actor, Eleanor Bron, meanwhile, makes a cameo appearance as the party planner.

The point, of course, is an examination of high art and its relationship with “popular” art. The incongruous Gilbertian compromise that the opera company and the burlesque troop will stage a show about Ariadne collaboratively is – in this production – suitably entertaining and witty. It also heightens the poignancy of the bereft Ariadne (Mardi Byers) whose lover, Theseus has abandoned her. I shall long treasure the silly dance with tricks by Zerbinetta and her troupe of four – to Strauss at his most tunefully spikey – as they try, and fail, to cheer up Ariadne.

Jennifer France is in her element as Zerbinetta and her show piece number – with Queen of the Night-like top notes and vocal acrobatics along with delicious comic timing, nippy dancing and lots of panache – gets her a well-deserved round of spontaneous applause. Mardi Byers delights as a velvety voiced, soulful and then joyful Ariadne and there’s lovely work from Kor-Jan Dusseljee as Bacchus who eventually sweeps her off her feet – their concluding duets are warmly balanced and theatrically satisfying.

It’s one of Strauss’s richest, and best orchestrated operatic scores and conductor Brad Cohen brings out the colour – even though from my seat I could hear more stage left percussion than I could horns who were on the other side.

Antony McDonald’s set is an ingenious device. It consists of three scruffy caravans – all with doors for exits and entrances and one which can be (and is) climbed on. These are the backstage areas for the visiting performers and they sit well against the elegant residual brick and stone work of the Holland Park house to suggest that a couple of troupes of performers have arrived at a stately home. In the second half, for the opera, the caravans are moved to the sides to make room for the dining table which forms the main set item for Ariadne but we never forget that this is a show within a show.

I’m less convinced by the rather clumsy device of doing the prologue in English and the opera in German. I suppose it stresses the idea that first these people are being themselves and then they’re acting but it felt very false and certainly confused several audience members who were seated near me.

Susan Elkin

Investec Opera Holland Park – July 2018

Isabeau is a strange, rather clunky piece and it was completely new to me. Think Spamalot meets The Merchant of Venice with a seasoning of The Emperor’s New Clothes which finally morphs into Lear or Oedipus. And with characters with names such as Ethelberto of Argyle and Randolf of Dublin it’s the sort of thing which provides ammunition for opera sceptics who want to ridicule the entire art form. It isn’t hard to see why Isabeau has more or less disappeared from the repertoire in the last 80 years or so although it enjoyed a fair amount of ongoing success following its 1911 Buenos Aires premiere.

Virginal Princess Isabeau i(Anne Sophie Duprels) is told by her tyrannical father (Mikhail Svetlov) the King that she must choose a husband from one of a series of competitors for her hand. She doesn’t fancy any of them, so her furious father says she must ride naked through the streets as a punishment. Citizens are forbidden, on pain of blinding, to look. Meanwhile a jolly falconer, Folco (David Butt Philip) has turned up – with lovely silver falcon puppet. He and Isabeau fall in love. He looks at her nakedness. He is blinded. They die. Yes the plot – or “book” as we would say if this were a musical – is utter tosh, however hard the production tries to find topical resonances relating to feminism, appearance and all the rest of it.

On the other hand Pietro Mascagni’s score is full of delightful orchestral colour every nuance of which is allowed to sing out under Francesco Cilluffo’s energetic baton. Isabeau gets a passionate aria in Act 1 in which she pleads with her father and each of her sustained notes is accompanied by shifting cadences beneath it. At one point the horns have a very dramatic and unusual repeated figure in which a very short note is followed by a stressed longer one. There’s interesting music for the harp and sometimes for percussion although the wood block for the horse’s hooves put me irreverently in mind of Monty Python.

There are some fine performances on stage here too. As a woman cheated of just about everything, Duprels uses her soaring top notes movingly to communicate passion and tragedy. Butt Philip’s tenor is warm and convincing especially when he is effectively in duet with the cellos. The piece finally becomes dramatically coherent in the last act when Isabeau visits Folco’s prison cell. Their duet work here is nicely balanced and judged in this production and you actually begin to believe in them.

Full marks to Opera Holland Park’s usual large, young chorus too. Chorus Master, David Todd, has done a fine job in making them sound really vibrant as they swarm over the set designed by takis.

There are problems with the set, however. It looks great with lots of steps, ledges and platforms on three moveable, interlocking “islands” presenting different configurations to connote a medieval castle. It’s visually a strong idea and it works especially well during Isabeau’s naked ride which takes place upstage behind the continuously shifting “castle” so that the audience gets the merest hint. The trouble is that these bits of castle are clearly very heavy and the cast and crew often struggle to start them rolling. And there’s a stage left chamber (a bit like a giant version of a disability lavatory on a modern train) whose big semi-circular door refused to budge on press night leaving cast members invisible to the audience who palpably resisted cheering when a stage hand, dressed as a churl, finally freed it, several minutes later. A case of a potentially good design whose practical problems have not been fully thought through? Let’s hope they sort it for the rest of the run.

St Saviour’s Church, St Albans , 4 July 2018

This rather elegant, intelligent Cosi is a good example of what can be achieved with six singers, a pianist and minimal props and set. Sung in Italian with “side titles” on small screens at the two edges of the playing area, it’s an enjoyably accessible take on the opera too.

Honey Rouhani is a delightful Despina. She makes every note sound gloriously effortless and she talks, quips and jokes with eloquent, flashing eyes. Her cynical, rippling 6|8 number when she first tells Fiordiligi (Loretta Hopkins) and Dorabella (Phillipa Thomas) what she thinks about men is sung with terrific verve.

There’s a strong performance from James Williams as the scheming bass, Don Alfonso too. He makes the bottom notes ring out with resonance – and cheerful malice. After all it’s a cruel joke he’s playing on the two women who are famously each tricked into yielding to the other’s disguised fiancé – to prove that no woman can be trusted because “cosi fan tutte” which translates roughly as “they’re all the same”.

I especially admired the ensemble work in this production. Many of the trios, quartets, quintets and sextets are beautifully sung, well supported by the warm acoustic of St Saviour’s Church. The solo work is generally adequate but not, in most cases as noteworthy as the group numbers – with the exception of Robert Barbaro’s 3|4 aria as Ferrando which is exquisite.

Loretta Hopkins – whose Fiordiligi is really troubled by the events which overtake her and, for a long time passionately resistant to seduction –  is an outstanding, very convincing actor which more than compensates for the harshness in some of her top notes and thinness at the bottom. David Fletcher (as Gugliemo) is entertaining and a strong duettist. Thomas is a good foil to Hopkins and has an appealingly colourful voice.

And, on the night I saw Cosi, there was a terrific performance from Janet Haney on piano. She and Elspeth Wilkes have shared out the performance dates.  I am, however, doubtful of the wisdom of opening this show – which is already quite long – with the overture played on piano. It feels a bit odd as if we’re starting the evening with a piano recital. Moreover, at times, especially in the first scene the piano seems to be drowning out the singers. Perhaps it is mis-positioned and would be better behind the action, further away from the audience?

Susan Elkin