Handel - Amadigi di Gaula (Buxton, 2026)

George Frideric Handel - Amadigi di Gaula

Buxton International Festival, 2026

Erin Helyard, Olivia Fuchs, Timothy Morgan, Rowan Pierce, Hilary Cronin, James Hall

Buxton Opera House - 20th July 2026

He was a bit of a genius, this George Frideric Handel. I realise I'm not making any startlingly original observations there but having seen it at this year's Buxton International Festival's production it seems that in Amadigi di Gaula - and quite a few other Handel operas apparently - he was the originator of the game show concept of Love Island and The Bachelor, or at the very least he anticipated their existence 300 years before the event! Ok, that is perhaps not the greatest claim for the genius of the composer, but what the Buxton Festival production did was show that Handel was certainly in tune with the public's taste for highly charged (and contrived) romance and love drama entertainments. The real cleverness of the production however is in how it shows that Handel's opera seria music - which could potentially come across as quite dry and stuffy - actually has a great sense of fun.

In which case it's the director Olivia Fuchs who is perhaps the real genius here in recognising or finding a way that makes the hothouse love entanglements of figures in a magical fantasy actually relate to something we are familiar with - or at least can recognise - in the modern world, and translate those high-flown melodramatic sentiments into something that still has meaning and relevance to a modern audience. Instead of viewing it in its 18th century incarnation of a Paladin and the Prince of Thrace both being enamoured with the daughter of the King of the Fortunate Isles while a sorceress concocts spells to win the Paladin for herself, the director sets the opera as a reality game show on 'Melissa's Island' where the competition is played out, the contestants undertaking hazardous tasks to find out who is worthy of true love.

There is no sense of any half measure here: director Olivia Fuchs and set designer Eleanor Bull go all out to set the drama as a Love Island TV game show and it works so perfectly you would think that it was written to be presented this way. OK, I don't think those competing for the affections of prospective partners on Love Island threaten to kill themselves and each other quite as often as they do in Handel's Amidigi di Gaula, but as I haven't actually watched any of the reality game shows it is based on, I couldn't say for sure. I have seen newspaper reports of fatalities and contestants suffering serious consequences following their appearances on these shows, so Handel or his librettist (who has not been positively identified as far as I know) may even have been aware of the stakes involved in such public displays of affection and rejection.

But then it's long been a feature of opera - and apparently in life before opera if one can imagine such barbaric times - that love cuts deep. The contestants here on Melissa's Island, or the noble lords and ladies in Amadigi di Gaula if you prefer, are young and headstrong, self-absorbed and beautiful, and presumably used to lovers falling at their fee; yet errors of judgement and misfortunate timing all conspire to make the choice of an ideal romantic partner a lot more difficult than it ought to be. The Buxton production brings out this character brilliantly during the overture, Melissa the hostess/sorceress inviting a line-up of contestants onto the stage, each full of themselves and confident of their charms, leaving us with only the host and the three finalists to get the right partners for each other.

The production is more than just a clever eye-popping set design or clever conceit imposed on Handel. The direction is superb, the figures never resorting to just standing facing the audience and working their way through da capo arias. The four lovers are given some measure of personality and thus a degree of sympathy, without ever getting too deep or serious. I say that but there are deep emotions of all kinds, laments, joyful rhythms and dances and the director makes sure that none of them are just left to go to waste, giving the singers room to express themselves with in it.

Whatever you think of the production - and everyone I spoke to or heard speak about it loved it - at the heart of it all is the music of Handel which explores the range of all those emotions. You would think that the opera seria format and the delivery of da capo arias might be restrictive, that Handel's musical style is a little too elegant and artificial to be matched with a bright modern set, modern attitudes and quite a few added comic touches and nods to the audience, but in reality the artificiality of the setup perfectly matches the artificiality of the contrived idealistic views of the lover/contestants: all of it contrived of course to delight and entertain an audience.

Handel's opera was indeed a great success when it premiered in London in 1715, the composer proving that he had his finger on the pulse of what the public wanted following the success of his first Italian opera in London, Rinaldo (1711), also drawn from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso; Amadigi's original production even employing some spectacular magic effects of its own for the delight of its audience. And indeed, the composer would go on to write quite a few more successful magic operas (or further seasons of Love Island if you like) in Orlando (1733), Ariodante (1735) and Alcina (1735), all likewise drawn from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. I suspect that the way it was presented 300 years ago might not have quite the same impact today, so it is entirely right that the Buxton production should do the same for a modern audience.

With the English Consort orchestra conducted by Erin Helyard, the performance did justice to Handel's score, employing theorbo, recorder and harpsichord without it ever feeling like this was 'old music'. That's a credit to the production as a whole, the music working perfectly with the tone of the comedy and sincerity of the sentiments expressed and played out on the stage. The singing and the dramatic performances were all excellent. One of the benefits of this work is that with only four characters, the love complications are not overly complicated - or need not be as complicated as these figures make it - and each character - all equally deserving of love - get the opportunity to express their feelings in beautiful arias.

Melissa of course the most interesting figure as the sorceress; the schemer, plotting and creating drama, the role was wonderfully sung by Hilary Cronin - who sang in another Handel four-hander Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno in Buxton in 2024 - supplying plenty of character. Timothy Morgan, taking on the role at short notice was a headstrong Amadigi, the character's easy going charm not quite as easy to relate to, but the countertenor played the role with smooth confidence. Rowan Pierce was a bright Oriana and James Hall an impetuous Dardano; more than just love interest secondary characters, they have a vital role to play in their struggle to assert themselves against these powerful forces that would direct their lives in another direction from their hearts. Musically this hit all the right points, the strings striking a dance to the beat of life, the oboe and recorder woodwinds capturing the lyricism of the emotions in this revitalising interpretation of a delightful Handel opera.

External links: Buxton International Festival

Handel - Deidamia (Wexford, 2025)

George Frideric Handel - Deidamia 

Wexford Festival Opera, 2025

George Petrou, Sophie Junker, Sarah Gilford, Bruno de Sá, Nicolò Balducci, Rory Musgrave, Petros Magoulas

O'Reilly Theatre, National Opera House, Wexford - 22nd October 2025

For a festival that specialises in rare opera, it's not unknown for the occasional 18th century baroque and opera seria works to be performed at the Wexford Festival Opera, although to do so authentically usually requires a specialised early music orchestra or ensemble. Since the theme of this year's festival however is build around Myths and Legends - a mainstay of early opera - opera seria is the place to find plenty of great rarely performed operas, of which Handel's 1741 Deidamia is definitely a rarity. The composer's final opera before he turned his attention in later years to oratorio, it's perhaps not so great when measured alongside his next work Messiah, also in 1741, but all Handel's operas are worth exploring. If there was a brief from the Wexford Festival's artistic director that the focus of each of the operas should be on the human element to make the legend relevant to real people today, director George Petrou seems to have taken that brief literally.

Dealing with an obscure incident in Homer's Odyssey, where Odysseus travels to the island of Skyros searching for Achilles who is needed for the upcoming battle in Troy, it does seem a little bit strange just to overlay the Greek legend with some modern day tourists walking around the same Greek island taking selfies in the background, complete with projections of Wish You Were Here postcards. You would think the serious music of Handel wouldn't be able to sustain these two separate narratives, but by making some of the modern day travellers concerns similar to those of the ancient Greeks, it does succeed in making it a little more relevant, or at least sparks a little more interest. It's a good strategy since, taken on its own terms, Handel can often appear to be a bit dry, when - as David Alden recognised in the Dutch National Opera production of this work - there is actually quite a measure of humour built into the story and the music.

As both stage director and conductor, George Petrou is clearly aware of this and this concept consequently works very well, with both ancient and modern given equal attention. The little dramas of a bunch of privileged luxury tour holiday makers are perhaps not quite equal in importance (you might think), but Petrou strikes a balance where one gives equal emotional and meaningful weight to the other. The focus is of course on what is being sung and played out by the main figures in the ancient Greek drama, but essentially the concept emphasises the fact that the same concerns remain for all of us in the present day. Not that anyone today would start a catastrophic war with a nation over someone stealing their first lady. Or at least you would hope not, but you couldn't even count on that security in today's world.

If that were all that there was to it, presenting a necessary modern perspective on an ancient legend, it would be a valid approach, but Petrou doesn't settle for such simple parallels. Every scene ambitiously employs a new setting, using different special effects, new technology and projections in addition to traditionally impressive sets and effective lighting. All of it is in the service of making the production visually engaging, and if you engage visually as well as emotionally, you engage with the singing and the music, which can otherwise appear routine and repetitive. In reality, although Deidamia marked his retirement from writing opera, it is far from routine. Petrou, controlling the stage as well as the orchestra in the pit, knows how the music serves every scene with drama, emotion, tenderness and concern; all the necessary human qualities in the work, even if it is not the composer's most inspired or celebrated piece.

The plot and libretto don't exactly mark any important event in the story of the Odyssey. Well, it is based around the need to have the war machine that is Achilles join the assembled Greek fleet on its way to Troy, but since it has been foretold that Achilles will die on Trojan soil, his father has hidden him on the island, dressed as a girl under the name Pyrrha. Essentially the whole opera then is an attempt by two Greek commanders Odysseus and Phönix (both also going under assumed names) to discover the whereabouts of the warrior and get him to join the siege on Troy. Evidently, since there are disguises and cross-dressing involved and since Achilles is not great about hiding his manly interests in hunting and killing, this involves a few mishaps and misunderstandings, none of which in themselves are particularly original or humorous.

But George Petrou's Wexford production nonetheless makes the most of every situation. The sensitive direction, not without a sense of humour in where the two worlds cross over and occasionally interact, helps bring this out. The spectacular and inventive effects that set and costume designer Giorgina Germanou realises suit every mood from stormy seas, thunderous downpours, a classical vase design that turns out to be a modern fashion dress, animated sequences, an undersea scene and even a cheesy - and quite impressive - movie trailer. There is no end of inventiveness, none of it employed arbitrarily. The intention is to avoid static scenes, keep movement going and match the rhythms and moods of Handel's score without distracting from the essence of the dramatic flow.

In fact it actually supports the premise well. While all the plot revolves around Ulysses/Antilochus falling in love with a man dressed as a woman, or pretending to, and the (real) women trying to simultaneously fight off the advances of men while at the same time trying to woo them away from uncovering Achilles' true identity, (and in the case of Nerea falling in love in the process), the serious side is not neglected. It's the modern day inserts that help us to see this. At the end of the romantic comedy drama there is a long and brutal war that will take place and Achilles knows he will die in it. The duty and the solemnity of that hits home in the final scenes, again with projections contrasting the movie trailer epic seen earlier with the harsh reality of war that we are very familiar with witnessing at the moment.

Deidamia has two main roles that can be played by females dressed as men: one a man (Antilochus), the other a man pretending to be a woman (Achilles as Pyrrha). It avoids some confusion and disorientation - but not much - if both roles are undertaken as they are here by male countertenors, and we had two fine countertenors here with Nicolò Balducci as Ulysses and Bruno de Sá as Achilles. Balducci in particular was a standout performer here, but de Sá played up the badly pretend-female role well in an energetic performance. Rather than it being a showcase for singers, Handel actually balances out the roles well for the requirements of the drama, giving just as much attention to Deidamia as her friend Nerea, sung well here by Sophie Junker and Sarah Gilford. Likewise it provided the opportunity for Rory Musgrave and Petros Magoulas to make significant contributions as as Phönix and Lycomede.

Still Deidamia is perhaps not a great Handel opera or the most thrillingly plotted, but it's a masterful one nonetheless and one that was definitely worthwhile reviving (among many potential Handel and opera seria candidates) for this year's Wexford Festival Opera's Myths & Legends theme. Like all baroque opera, there is always the danger of three hours of da capo arias being a bit of a chore if not handled sensitively and respectfully, but the key is also not to do it too reverentially. The balance here in this production conducted and directed by George Petrou is ideal, with the music providing dramatic drive and tone that the visual extravagance and performances matched impressively. Very impressively indeed.

External links: Wexford Festival Opera, Wexford Festival Opera Streaming on RTE Lyric FM

Handel - Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Salzburg, 2025)

George Frideric Handel - Giulio Cesare in Egitto

Salzburger Festspiele, 2025

Emmanuelle Haïm, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Christophe Dumaux, Olga Kulchynska, Lucile Richardot, Federico Fiorio, Yuriy Mynenko, Andrei Zhilikhovsky, Jake Ingbar, Robert Raso

3Sat Livestream - August 2025

Dmitri Tcherniakov's direction of the new 2025 Salzburg production of Giulio Cesare in Egitto appears to be drenched in irony. Perhaps not surprisingly, as the director rarely takes opera libretti at face value, particularly when the truth of human nature that they seek to present can often be obscured by poetic declamation and sweet music. That is no impediment to Handel, who composed some of his finest music and managed to get to the heart of the complex relationships between people in love and in war, but inevitably we have a different attitude towards modern warfare and dictators now and the impact their actions have on ordinary people. It is necessary - particularly in our current times - to acknowledge that and get it across if you want Handel's opera to say something meaningful about today rather than being an operatic museum piece.

Tcherniakov, as a Russian born director, has addressed such issues before and met them head-on in what would have otherwise been a problematic production of Prokofiev's War and Peace being staged in Munich while Russia was attacking Ukraine not too far away. Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto of course needs no such translation, the composer in his third opera making the complicated situation of Caesar and Pompey's war in Egypt involving Ptolemy and his sister Cleopatra perfectly clear. All the hidden sentiments, rivalry, lusts and cruelties are exposed or at least hinted at, but there is a danger that dated but nonetheless heartfelt expressions such as Ptolemy describing Caesar in terms like "This perfidious, unworthy miscreant" might lack the necessary weight behind them that the situation demands. 

The war between Caesar and Pompey might be over, but the 'fall-out' from their power struggle remains, and Tcherniakov chooses to present that in terms of the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. If there is an irony in that situation it's a grim one, rendering the participants pathetic figures fighting over a wasteland. Whether you think that's appropriate for what happened in 45 BC or even whether it's relevant to the time of the original composition in 1724, it certainly hammers home the potential endgame of what is being played out on the global scene today. All the main players have been evacuated to a network of underground bunkers (the ordinary citizens presumably left to fend for themselves above ground), their opening praise to Caesar's accomplishments striking that first note of irony. As Cesare, Cleopatra and Tolomeo all strike airs singing airs, the others seem to have little time for their self-delusions; the reality of Pompey's death, Caesar's ambition and Cleopatra's self importance having little truck with the others, not least the grieving Cornelia, the vengeful Sesto and the self-serving Achilla.

The set design and directorial characterisation gets to the heart of the contradiction of Giulio Cesare in Egitto. There is a bloody and violent war going on, there is a struggle for power, a battle of egos, a struggle for dominance, all filled with anger, betrayal and plotting. There is also a measure of some kind of greatness and beauty here with sentiments praising fidelity, beauty, love and genuine human feeling. Handel reconciles those opposing but complementary forces in his music. It's simply a beautifully conceived and composed opera, but of course that is hard to view in the same way several hundred years later, several millennia after the original figures appeared on the world stage, particularly when we are likely to have a different view of how historical events played out in opera compare to real life as we know it. Still, the opera stage is no place for 'real life'; the challenge rather is to make it better and truer to life, if you think such a thing is possible. Handel proves that it is, and the director has to use that key resource to his advantage.

Aside from his great work with Russian opera (outstanding with Rimsky-Korsakov, Shostakovitch, Borodin, Prokofiev), I'm not convinced that Tcherniakov has a similar feeling for western operas, taking more of a combative approach, breaking them down, stripping them of mannerisms and adornments, viewing them in terms of middle-class psychodramas, turning them around and turning them on the bourgeois western audience who frequently reward the production team with boos for their trouble. A simplistic analysis of Tcherniakov's intent maybe, but although it can sometimes detract from the deeper purpose of the works, his approach still produces interesting results. It certainly worked when Tcherniakov last worked side-by-side with musical director Emmanuelle Haïm on the Gluck Iphigénie en Aulide/Iphigénie en Tauride diptych for Aix-en-Provence last year. Like that production, I don't think Tcherniakov's approach subverts Handel's vision or detracts from the beauty of the work, but I don't think he really adds anything to it either or fully translates it for a modern audience.

Baroque often needs a little more dramatic inventiveness and Tcherniakov's bunker setting really just closes it in. An example of his approach is in Act II, Scene III which the original libretti describes as "Cornelia, con piccola zappa nelle mani, che vien coltivando i fiori" ("Cornelia, in the garden of the seraglio with a small hoe in her hand cultivating flowers"). Here Cornelia sings 'Deh. Piangete, oh mesti lumi, già per voi non v'è più speme' on a mattress where her son Sesto has been trussed up and dumped at her feet as if dead. Unquestionably Tchernaikov's version is a more dramatic alignment with the sentiments expressed by Cornelia, but it's the aria itself and the person singing it that expresses the horror of the situation and that's done here by Lucile Richardot. A baroque specialist, she may not be an ideal Cornelia but she has an interesting expressive dramatic harshness here that suits the character. Tolomeo’s attempted rape in the subsequent aria 'Sì, spietata, il tuo rigore…' does indeed also reflect the intent of the aria and gives the resultant fury of Sesto justification, so Tcherniakov knows exactly how to draw the most out of the scene, perhaps taking it even further than necessary into suggestions of an incestuous nature. That's the general approach taken elsewhere here.

For Scene VII in this Act likewise, Tcherniakov translates Cleopatra’s 'Venere bella' from a "pleasure garden" to Caesar’s bed (or mattress here), which again is realistic and much less "flowery". Each scene is balanced to strike a good balance between realistic behaviour and the operatic flourishes, the singers playing with great intensity. Like his work on War and Peace, Tcherniakov manages to do this by tapping into the fragile state of madness that reflects the current political climate and reflect it on the stage without foolishly trying to represent it with explicit references. Despite a few shock interruptions however and the onstage attempted assassination of Caesar, the grey oppressiveness of the bunker situation is unable to compensate for the otherwise inertness of dramatic action. Since the opera is largely characterised by declamatory arias, ariosos and recitative however perhaps that's too much to expect.

But again, I stress, what can't be denied as hugely effective is the beautiful musical and lyrical content that Handel has arranged. Above everything it's superbly played under the musical direction of Emmanuelle Haïm and in the wonderfully cast and well directed acting of the singers, all of which makes it a gripping and engaging Giulio Cesare. It's impossible to single out any of the cast as more deserving of praise, but evidently the key roles are all impressive. There's the vulnerability and charm of Olga Kulchynska's Cleopatra seeking love and alliance; the lustful imperiousness nobility of Christophe Dumaux's Cesare; the inner strength and dignity with which Lucile Richardot's Cornelia endures her torment and grief; the wonderfully sneery arrogance and casual cruelty of Yuriy Mynenko's floppy haired public schoolboy Tolomeo. Even the secondary roles of Andrei Zhilikhovsky's Achilla and Federico Fiorio's particularly excitable and impetuous Sesto are exceptionally good  with individual interpretations that contrast and complement each other. The roles of Nireno and Curio are necessarily reduced here, but also sung well by Jake Ingbar and Robert Raso. You would of course expect this high standard at Salzburg, and unquestionably this is opera performance and interpretation of the highest order.

External links: Salzburger Festspiele

Handel - Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (Buxton, 2024)

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 oratorio 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 of 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.

External links: Buxton International Festival

Handel - Orlando (Buxton, 2023)

George Frideric Handel - Orlando (Buxton, 2023)

Liberata Collective, Buxton International Festival, 2023

Adrian Butterfield, Christian Joel, Joanna Harries, Olivia Doutney, Susanna MacRae, Jolyon Loy

Pavilion Arts Centre, Buxton - 10th July 2023

Although I'm very much in favour of modernising and keeping opera productions relevant and meaningful to a contemporary audience, I'm not opposed in principle to historically informed productions. Like any production, it's how well it's done and how much it is in service to the work that counts, and if either approach means that you just get to hear more from Handel and other baroque opera composers - particularly with period instruments - then I'm all for it. The Liberata Collective certainly put an interesting spin on their production of Orlando for the 2023 Buxton International Festival by staging it in the authentic Baroque Gesture style.

I've never seen a Baroque opera performed in the style of the period, other than Pierre Audi's rather dull historical versions of Tamerlano and Alcina, so it was hard to know what to expect. With Baroque Gesture, there are strict guidelines on posture and stage position that might not even really be evident to a modern audience, but the acting and exaggerated signifying hand gestures risk being appearing mannered to a bemused audience rather than informative. Or silly even if it turned out to be anything like the odd period style acting I witnessed at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liège's 2013 production of Grétry's Guillaume Tell, which was something of an acquired taste to say the least. On the other hand, if the period acting turned out to be as revelatory as hearing such early opera works performed using period instruments, this Orlando would be of great interest to anyone looking for as authentic a performance of Handel as possible.

And in some ways it was, although perhaps more for academic interest than for bringing out any other newly rediscovered dimension out of Handel's Orlando. The Liberata Collective helpfully provided a booklet with the kind of gestures to expect to see on the stage as well as and what they mean, and also gave some historical background on the practice. Since this opera would have been performed in the original Italian on its original performance at the King’s Theatre in London on 27 January 1722, surtitles would obviously not have been provided, but a translated libretto would have been handed out. The audience would also be familiar with the gestures operating like signifiers or pointers to what is being described on the text. So lots of swooning and pointing to the heavens, but the mannerisms are there just as much to serve the function of dramatic style and expression.

And, if this Orlando is anything to go by, they do hold the attention in a 'look at me, look at me!' kind of way, although translations displayed to the screens at the sides of the stage may have distracted from a focus on the performers and the gestures now and again. You could look at this as the best of both worlds, as there were moments to enjoy in the gestures and the performances as well as in the English translation without too much being compromised.

Orlando however is not the most exciting episode in Ludovico Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando Furioso, nor indeed the most interesting of the three Handel operas based on the work. To compete with the magic enchanted isles of Alcina and the romantic medieval melodrama of Ariodante, Handel even introduced the characters of Dorinda and Zoroastro, neither of whom appear in the original work and, unlike many of the works he created when he moved to England which reused elements from earlier works, composed entirely new music for Orlando. Nonetheless, it's still a challenge not just to hold attention as really invite you to care about the romantic drama going on on the stage. 

The premise in Orlando is laid out at the start. Zoroastro, unhappy about the complicated and unresolved love drama going between the Orlando, Angelica the Princess of Cathay, the prince Medoro and the shepherdess Dorinda, casts a spell on the knight to turn him away from effeminate love and get back to doing what he is best, which seems to be being prone to fits of madness and violence, taking up a sword and slaughtering Saracens in the Crusades. Thereafter, both women and Medoro are left rather confused about Orlando's attentions and quite keen to get away from him, until Zoroastro relents and brings him back to his senses.

The focus may be on gestural expression, but the production doesn't fail to recognise that nature also features in the libretto and suggests another dimension to the work. Two laurel trees decorate the stage indicating the bucolic setting, but the focus on nature and what it says about the nature of man is not emphasised or explored quite as successfully as it was in the direction of Mozart's Il re pastore which ventured deeper into that territory the previous evening at the Buxton International Festival. There's an interesting comparison to be made on the respective approaches to this kind of Baroque opera, and one wonders whether the Mozart would have gained anything from a Baroque Gesture style performance. As it is, each opera worked in its own terms, but it shows that for all their superficial simplicity there are many ways to bring out deeper aspects from such works.

Here of course, with Adrian Butterfield directing the Ensemble Hesperi from the violin and with the use of period instruments, the emphasis was on the quality of the music of Orlando and its ability to carry the dramatic intent of the opera. And being Handel of course, it's absolutely beautiful. With the small ensemble to the right of the stage, it was more than enough to spring this work into life. There was some fine singing as well from Christian Joel singing countertenor as Orlando, and Jolyon Loy's drop-in appearances as Zoroastro had the necessary impact. Despite the gestured mannerisms and the sometimes playful bemused response to Orlando's conflicted emotions, the quality of the performances of Joanna Harries as Medoro, Olivia Doutney as Angelica and Susanna MacRae as Dorinda all commanded attention. 

Attention is vital in Orlando, to feel involved in the drama and what the music brings to it. If there is one aspect that Baroque Gesture brought to this, it's some indefinable sense of balance and movement. The entrances and exits felt natural and timely, adding a sense of order and structure that suggests that this lost art is an essential element of Baroque opera. Everything felt in its right place to the extent that when Zoroastro steps in and repairs the harm that Orlando has done, it doesn't feel quite as much the deus ex machina that Baroque opera can often provide. That is something that Il re pastore could possibly have benefitted from, but each had their own merits in an excellent Buxton programme. I would have loved to have seen their production of La Sonnambula as well, but sadly missed that due to a very long flight delay on the way over to the festival.

Links: Buxton International Festival

Handel - Acis and Galatea (Buxton, 2021)

George Frideric Handel - Acis and Galatea

Buxton International Festival, 2021

Christian Curnyn, Martin Constantine, Anna Dennis, Samuel Boden, Jorge Navarro Colorado, Edward Grint, David de Winter

Buxton Opera House - 18th July 2021

When it comes to Handel, the Baroque music and formality of the libretti can often be a little bit dry, particularly his pastoral dramas and religious oratorios. There's nothing however that a good bit of direction can't fix, and even the love story of a shepherd and a nymph in Acis and Galatea can be enlivened and made relatable, as the Opera Theatre Company demonstrated in their setting of the story as a drunken fracas in an Irish pub. Directed by Martin Constantine, Buxton's production also updates Acis and Galatea, but finds another way to work with the old-fashioned sentiments expressed in the libretto, though not quite so consistently or successfully.

Rather than finding a way into the work to make it come alive, the 2021 Buxton International Festival production takes a distanced half-hearted academic approach to the work, the setting being a Human Sciences International Symposium in 1962 being held to explore the subject of love - worldly and otherworldly - as it is dealt with in Handel's Acis and Galatea. It's not a bad idea as such, introducing the key players and bringing a focus through slides and projections to the key words and sentiments to do with love that librettist John Gay repeats throughout the opera. Hence, joy, pleasure and happiness are highlighted but also wretchedness.

Each of the delegates present their papers on the subject, while a stage hand provides props to put these ideas into the context of the present day. It being 1962, it's the model idea of the happy couple in a domestic setting, an armchair and a table with a pet bird in a cage perhaps symbolic of their love. Slides show the traditional roles of the charming dutiful wife cooking for and looking after her husband after a hard day's work tending his sheep. And then Polyphemus comes along and in a jealous rage crushes their love (the bird) and eventually his rage becomes so great that he strikes down Acis.

This scenario on its own attempts to get across the diversity and extreme nature of emotions engendered by love but can appear rather broad and superficial. Handel's music certainly weaves an elegant and stately path through the trials and vicissitudes of love. It's beautiful, stately, a little old-fashioned and rather French tragédie-lyrique in the formality of its drama dealing with the conflict between mortals and otherworldly creatures and gods, of which Acis becomes one of their number in the tragic conclusion. Musically its a delight although a little pedestrian and unvarying in pace and dynamic, so it can do with a little more oopmh (technical term) from the direction. Unfortunately it doesn't quite get it here.

Not all the actions relate to a conference presentation, but it's not clear either whether fiction becomes blurred with fact over a love affair between colleagues or whether there's an academic disagreement. The actions unfortunately don't really relate to what is going on. One baffling scene has Acis trying on jackets from a rail and ending up putting them on one on top of the other in his upset state, before being calmed down by Damon. Some of the tragedy is inevitably diminished by Acis suffering little more than an admittedly vicious blow to the head by his academic/love rival, but sometimes bringing Handel down to earth isn't a bad thing.

And in a way, the conclusion succeeds in some respect at getting that across. Throwing off their stuffy formal suits, the academics at the conference step down from the platform to enjoying the pleasures that nature has to bring. The reveal of a field behind the curtain and projection screen in the hall is also a little strange, but the idea is at least buoyed along by the music and sentiments of Handel's beautiful score. And by the singing. The quality of the ensemble is as essential in Handel as the individual voices and they were superbly cast here and beautifully delivered.

Anna Dennis was a sincere lyrical Galatea, Samuel Boden a fervent Acis, Edward Grint a suitably raging Polyphemus, Jorge Navarro Colorado combining the roles of Damon and Coridon with a lovely warm timbre, and David de Winter blending in beautifully as Chorus. The complementing of voices for the roles was lovely; Acis and Galatea genuinely sounded like a heavenly match together, contrasting with darkness of Polyphemus, the ensemble of five voices just gorgeous.

Christian Curnyn's direction of the Early Opera Company orchestra didn't always make the music sing, but if anything can make the sentiments of Handel and the potentially stuffy quality of the musical arrangements come alive in the absence of a suitable idea and setting it's the voices and by the conclusion, this Acis and Galatea was soaring.

Links: Buxton International Festival

Handel / Mozart - Der Messias (Salzburg, 2020)

George Frideric Handel / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Der Messias

Mozartwoche Salzburg, 2020

Marc Minkowski, Robert Wilson, Elena Tsallagova, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Richard Croft, José Coca Loza

Unitel Classica - Blu-ray

Putting aside the sheer beauty of the aesthetic of a visual artist who paints with light and shapes, the success of Robert Wilson's unique style and direction, I find, is down to his ability to touch on the spiritual nature of music in his abstract designs without needing to slavishly serve the conventional narrative form of the drama. Evidently that works well in works that stretch the opera form like Pelléas et Mélisande or Arvo Pärt's Adam's Passion, but even in a work with no apparent ambitions towards spirituality as Einstein on the Beach or in a work as conventionally opera-dramatic as Il Trovatore he sometimes manages it as well - perhaps finding something spiritual in the less familiar French language version in the case of the latter.

There are similar gaps to explore between traditional expectations and boundaries in this less familiar German version of Handel's Messiah. The original work itself of course has a beautiful spiritual dimension, and if the purpose or intent of the oratorio is to embody the essence of godliness, Wilson is well equipped to do that. Intriguingly however the work was arranged with new instruments and in the German language by Mozart, another great composer who also had a deep feeling for the spiritual side of humanity, who would himself contribute a considerable body of his work to religious music, masses and of course in his famous requiem. There's an intriguing crossover there, an exploration and reworking of one great composer's work by another to his own idiom and that presents a fascinating musical world for a conductor to explore, and for a director like Robert Wilson to present.

Quite how you would begin to describe Wilson's approach to Der Messias, much less evaluate it, doesn't seem at all worthwhile. In a light-boxed and light-framed stage he captures transitions in mood, sentiment and meaning in a shifting of light, in the change of a colour tone, a blast of bright godly light or fading light like the setting of the sun, from glory to quiet contemplation. The projections of nature and floating natural objects add another element not always used in the artificial reality and geometric shapes of Wilson productions. A log, a stick, a tree with roots, waves gently rolling, huge shifting and crashing icebergs. And within this figures are precisely posed, Richard Croft dressed up like a Bob Hope music hall entertainer, winking and nodding to the audience, Elena Tsallagova a more angelic presence (and voice), with dancers and other enigmatic figures making appearances.

You might have a problem with this abstraction, but only if you try to apply or impose meaning or interpretation upon it. It can distract from following the expression of Charles Jennens's libretto (although that has a complicating factor in it being sung in German, so is not as 'direct' as you might be familiar with). Not that Jennens's words are transparent or direct in any case, but if they take on renewed meaning here it's because of Mozart's beautiful version of the score, a wonderful blend of Handel's composition and Mozart's musical and instrumental rearrangement. Not that you can find Wilson's contribution indifferent. As is often the case, even if it sounds like a cop out, is that you have to do is let Wilson transport you into his vision and feeling for the piece. It will work for some, not so much for others, but it is beautiful hypnotic and involving in its own way.

Inevitably, there is always a sense of coldness and formality about a Robert Wilson production, which when aligned with the archaic expression of Jennens makes the message of the Messiah feel as if it were something encased in ice. That may sound unkind, but there is something to that view of religious formality and purity that doesn't permit any flaws or imperfections. Wilson embraces this, finds the beauty within it and seeks to almost glorify it and in his own way break through the ice to the message of warmth, of peace and of hope for humanity. Which was perhaps also Mozart's intention in taking the outdated musical style of oratorio and bringing his own human touch to the greatness that lies within Handel's icy perfection.

Whether he succeeds and whether you ascribe to the Wilson view of opera and theatre direction or not is a matter for the individual viewer, but it's unquestionably original. If you go with that (ice) flow however, there's every possibility that you can look at Handel's Messiah in an entirely new way. The contribution of Mozart's Classical Viennese reworking of Handel can't be discounted for the power and majesty of the music alone, and unsurprisingly Handel sounds natural in German. In terms of interpretation it is quite wonderful under Marc Minkowski and his Les Musiciens du Louvre. Elena Tsallagova, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Richard Croft and José Coca Loza all likewise go a considerable way to ensure that even though almost entirely devoid of any religious connotation, the majesty of the work and its uplifting message for humanity comes through clearly.

Any Robert Wilson production in High Definition is always a treat and the image on this Blu-ray release from Unitel Classica of the 2020 Mozart Week Salzburg performance captures the muted blue/grey colour tones and the gradations of light and shadow beautifully. The 48kHz/24 bit High Resolution LPCM and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio tracks are no less impressive a soundstage for the wonderful musical performances and outstanding soloist and choral singing. Other than trailers, there are no extra features on the disc, just some background information in the enclosed booklet on how Mozart's version came into being and some consideration of the ideas employed by Wilson. The region-free Blu-ray has subtitles in German, English, French, Korean and Japanese.

Links: Mozartwoche Salzburg

Handel - Xerxes (Duisburg, 2019)

George Frideric Handel - Xerxes

Deutsche Oper am Rhein, 2019

Konrad Junghänel, Stefan Herheim, Valer Sabadus, Terry Wey, Katarina Bradic, Torben Jürgens, Heidi Elisabeth Meier, Anke Krabbe, Hagen Matzeit

OperaVision - January 2019

What is impressive about many of Stefan Herheim's productions is his ability to get deep underneath the driving forces of the works in question, whether it's by transporting the work into a modern context and completely deconstructing it (La Bohème, Rusalka), setting it in the wider context of the time and history surrounding its creation (Eugene Onegin), or even using the creator of the work and its creation to illuminate and provide another way of looking at the works (Parsifal, The Queen of Spades). Ironic distancing has to be maintained however with a respect for the fundamental concerns of the work and sometimes you get the impression on rare occasions that either Herheim's approach is completely ironical or he just doesn't have anything particularly deep or meaningful to say about the work.

Keeping opera seria entertaining and relevant to a modern audience while respecting the musical conventions and intentions of the work is a challenge for any director, and Handel's Xerxes/Serse is not the most dramatic or involving of treatments on a subject that has been covered many times in baroque opera. Sometimes however all you need is a single idea or context to set the work within, and Herheim's idea is a simple one that comes from a reversal of the work's English title; Xerxes becomes Sex Rex, the first century Persian king is actually something of a sex maniac.

That's actually an original and refreshing way of looking at the traditional role of the powerful ruler's involvement in a situation that is common in opera seria. Disrupting the romantic lives of everyone around him when he decides to choose a partner for himself, often it's seen in terms of a ruler being self-absorbed and oblivious to the concerns of others, asserting his will in an abuse of power. Nowadays that kind of behaviour from someone in a position of power and authority is seen differently as a sex pest or sexual predator, but Herheim doesn't attempt to put it in a modern context in the style for example of the 2017 Karlsruhe Semele.

Herheim in fact doesn't appear to choose to delve any more deeply than the simple reversal of the title however in this production of Xerxes, and rather than modernise the production or seek to put it in the context of a framework, he seems instead to just let it play out looking like a period production from 1738 when the opera was composed. Or is it a parody of an old opera seria production? This is where Herheim likes to blur the lines, but he gives little away to indicate any kind of irony or detachment, other than perhaps the fact that the behaviours of the characters are more recognisably human than the rather stiff formalism of roles and characters that you might expect from this.

But what might you reasonably expect from Xerxes? When the opera was first performed it wasn't terribly popular because it broke several of the strict rules of opera seria. For a start, Handel reduced the formality of da capo repetition in arias, reducing most of them down to one-part arias, which doesn't give the singers quite as much leeway for ornamentation. He also introduced an element of buffo comedy into the work, and mixing buffo and seria is a serious misdemeanour that in earlier times in France was known to result in a war, or at least a war of words in the Querelle des Bouffons.

Handel, I imagine, wasn't trying to start any wars, but simply reacting to the practical demands of the storyline, which to be frank was surely a rather tired situation even by Handel's time, and introduce a little more musical colour to the palette. Which he undoubtedly does, but perhaps not to the extent that the work can be staged 'straight' to a modern audience. I've no doubt that Stefan Herheim has thoroughly researched this, but as far as I can see, all he has managed to come up with as a way of tapping into the spirit of the work and presenting it to a modern audience is to exaggerate the other elements or bring them up to the level of Xerxes the Sex Rex.

Elviro as the comic fool for example, is played up to an almost slapstick level where he can hardly move for stumbling or bumping into people. Herheim even has him arguing with the prompter and the conductor in the pit, and Xerxes in annoyance breaks a musician's flute. Atalanta is extra-flirtatious and scheming, Romilda extra-prim and virtuous resulting in Atalanta's plots to remove her rival by attacking her in one scene with a knife, a snake, a gun, a cannon which puts a hole in the back of the scenery through to the backstage, then uses a crossbow and eventually succeeds only in bringing down a doll of Eros. With some dancing sheep thrown in, Herheim himself describes it all as a “baroque Muppet Show”.

There's no doubt that this enlivens the work to some degree, and it's quite clever in a nudge and a wink kind of way that recognises we are all actors playing roles on the stage of life, but there's not a lot more to it than that. There perhaps doesn't need to be for this opera, particularly when the production values are as high as we've come to expect from a Herheim production. If it's not a parody of an 18th century opera, it has all of the old-world spectacle of the stage design, props and costumes. It looks good, it sounds good, it's a bit of fun, and that ought to be enough, but it doesn't really do much to lessen the predictability and conventionality of the drama from feeling very tiring over the three hours it takes to get to a conclusion.

Perhaps that's down to the work itself which, hearing it for the first time, doesn't seem to rate among the most memorable of Handel's works. There's moments to enjoy of course in the musical performance under the direction of Konrad Junghänel who keeps it flowing along quite well. With recitative in German and the principal arias in Italian, the singing performances are good, counter-tenor Valer Sabadus in the castrato role of Xerxes tries hard to inject life and humour into the proceedings, Katarina Bradic as his cross-dressing jilted fiancée Amastre brings a lively verve to her performance. There's much to enjoy also in the complications between Atalanta, Romilda, Arsamene and Elviro, but the singing doesn't always have the necessary fullness and, despite all the efforts and prettiness of the production, it does come across as a disappointingly limp affair.

Links: Deutsche Oper am Rhein, OperaVision, YouTube