George Frideric Handel - Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno
Buxton International Festival, 2024
Christian Curnyn, Jacopo Spirei, Anna Dennis, Hilary Cronin, Hilary Summers, Jorge Navarro Colorado
Buxton Opera House - 18th July 2024
Performances of Handel operas can be hard work for the audience as much as a challenge for a director to make something of them, but they really shouldn't be. His oratorios works evidently need an extra little bit of dramatic action when performed as staged works, and those that you could categorise as allegorical fables even more so. The Buxton International Festival production of Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno ('The Triumph of Time and Disillusion' as it is normally referred to in English) does its best to find a suitable context to get across the moral message without being too stuffy about it, and if it doesn't entirely make it work dramatically, it at least succeeds in getting across the meaning of the work and highlights the extraordinary beauty of the piece.
Much as he 'excavated' Rossini's La donna del lago to bring it into the present day for Buxton in 2022, director Jacopo Spirei comes up with a fine modern-day situation that establishes the right character for each of the allegorical figures of Beauty, Pleasure, Time and Disillusion (or Disenchantment but closer to meaning Truth). Not quite as hard-hitting as Krysztof Warlikowsi's production for Aix-en-Provence in 2016, here these figures are at least more clearly of a whole, depicted as a family in a drab living room which you could probably call life. It's Christmas time moreover, so there is a little optimism at home even if it's just the delusion of Beauty who thinks this is the way it will always be, that nothing will ever change. Beauty and her sister Pleasure certainly live in the moment, but their father and mother, Time and Disillusion, have some harsh realities to lay out before them.
And they don't mince their words. Well, the words are fairly flowery, as you would expect in a Handel work one moreover with a libretto written by a Cardinal, Benedetto Pamphili, but the director has a way of making sure the truths hit home. Not so much perhaps in Act I, which drags its feet a little, as do Beauty and Pleasure who refuse to accept the wisdom and experience of their elders. The Second Act, which has one or two of Handel's most beautiful arias including the famous and beautiful Lascia la spina, is a different matter as reality starts to hit home. The opening of the Christmas presents for Beauty turns out to be is a disappointment, but it's not half as stripping of any illusions as Time dragging a coffin onto the stage to remind her that Beauty fades and dies. Nothing too subtle about the delivery of that message.
That's as much as you can do without going the full Warlikowski with this work, where the director of the Aix production layered on elements of the personification of these competing ideas as being on opposing hemispheres of the brain and made allusions to the works of Derrida. What designer Anna Bonomelli manages to do to elevate the Buxton production to a suitable sphere somewhere between reality and moralising is place this within a beautiful set with effective lighting design that contributes to establishing the nature and tone of the work.
It can still be a bit of a slog but that's the nature of Pamphili's somewhat overly florid and solemn libretto, and it's also the nature of Handel's graceful musical treatment, striking something of a mournful note throughout. There are no Vivaldi-like sprints to enliven the uniformity of tone here, but there are some nice directorial touches that find an underlying dark humour and bring out the poignancy that is most definitely there to be found in the music and the situation.
For all its moralising solemnity, Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno is still an astonishing work of great beauty, particularly if you are fortunate enough to hear it played live in a suitable venue with singers of quality and suitability for these roles. That is where the Buxton production succeeds brilliantly. The Buxton Opera House itself is also perfect for reduced orchestration, an ideal size for intimacy and acoustic fidelity. With Christian Curnyn conducting the period instrument orchestra of the Early Opera Company - as previously with their Acis and Galatea here in 2021 - it sounded marvellous, beautifully paced and measured, the music balanced with the singing, allowing you to hear and feel the playing of every instrument and get the meaning behind every sentiment.
Ultimately, the brilliance if the work is in the singing. These are gorgeous roles in a range of complementary voices and the casting was impressive, each of them given the opportunity to express their characters. I was particularly taken with the fullness of voice of Hilary Cronin as the Goth dressed Piacere/Pleasure. Hilary Summers' darkly seductive contralto made Disinganno/Disillusion an irresistible force for unwelcome truths, giving the role an otherworldly quality as well as making it feel real and something you could relate to. Which I suppose is the best you can do with a work like this, and it's clear that this is the intention of the director. Jorge Navarro Colorado as Tempo/Time was marvellous, blending beautifully with Summer's Disinganno in their Act II duet. There was some fine singing too from Anna Dennis as Belleza/Beauty, conveyed all the superficiality of the character as well as her deeper emotional response to the dawning - if never wholehearted - acceptance of her fate.
Not a cheery work by any means, but as far as the Buxton International Festival's treatment of Handel's oratorio goes, this is one regard in which beauty and pleasure win out.
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