After last year’s Don Giovanni I should have been prepared for the inanities of Daniel Slater’s approach to Mozart’s Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail but even I found it difficult to believe one could treat a work with such disdain.  Refusing to trust the music or the characterisation, the evening is full of ‘ideas’ which work against the emotional truth we experience if we simply close our eyes. That the soloists were, for the most part, so good, made it all the more upsetting. Rebecca Nelson has the measure of Konstanze but was required to do such inept things during her long arias that it was surprising she was able to complete them. Ensembles held up well and the brief chorus numbers were bright and effective as long as one was not looking. That the audience generally seemed to find the whole thing hilarious, even the underground torture chamber, I found disturbing. Needless to say, Mozart’s ideas of compassion, generosity and steadfast love had no place in this concoction.

I note that Daniel Slater is to direct Janacek’s The cunning little vixen for Garsington next year. It is a work I love; I will not be there. BH