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

Nicolai - The Merry Wives of Windsor (Liège, 2015 - Webcast)

 

Otto Nicolai - Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor

Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège, 2015

Christian Zacharias, David Hermann, Franz Hawlata, Anneke Luyten, Werner Van Mechelen, Sabina Willeit, Laurent Kubla, Davide Giusti, Sophie Junker, Stefan Cifolelli, Patrick Delcour, Sébastien Dutrieux, Patrick Mignon

Culturebox, Medici.tv - 5 February 2015

You wouldn't think that works on the lighter side of the opera/operetta spectrum would need much in the way of revision and updating for a modern audience, but it's a policy that has worked relatively well for the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège over the last few seasons. Not so much perhaps for Offenbach's La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein last year which turned a military satire into a cookery game-show to no great effect, but it's the sense of fun, playfulness and ingenuity that often counts in such works and if a little tweaking here and there can help bring rare Rossini, Grétry and Offenbach to the stage, then it's well worth the attempt.

Such is the case with Otto Nicolai's Singspiel, Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, a comic operetta based on Shakespeare's 'The Merry Wives of Windsor'. The Liège production takes place in suburbia in the present or sometime in the late-twentieth century, but there's not really much of an issue in terms of updating the period. The essence of Shakespeare's comedy is timeless, although it helps if, like Mozart's comedies - and this is quite reminiscent of one - it can remain in a little more of an 'innocent age' than the present day. What is more of an issue in presenting this particular work to a modern audience is, again like some of Mozart's comedies, the question of how to deal with all that spoken dialogue.

David Hermann's production deals with this very well this time. It abandons practically all of the original spoken passages that lead from one aria to the next and replaces it with a new concept entirely. After each scene, various members of the drama are interviewed (in French) on a couch by a psychiatrist, Dr. Cajus. More of a marriage counsellor than a psychiatrist perhaps, Frau Fluth (Alice Ford), for example, reveals to the doctor her plans to use John Falstaff's declaration to arouse the jealousy of her husband, as well as get one over on the arrogance of the man who has written the same letter to Frau Reich (Meg Page). Herr Fluth likewise confesses his anxieties on the couch, his paranoia about Falstaff being his wife's lover and his inability to catch him, taking his complex to nightmarish proportions.

This allows the opera to reduce the spoken exposition and find a new way of getting the underlying sentiments across to an audience while perhaps also poking a little fun at the tendency of Regietheater to open up the hood and examine the nuts and bolts that hold an opera together, as well as psychoanalytically delving into the motivations and psychologies of the characters. Is Sir John a figment of the character's imagination, invented to act out their own impulses, or is he real, as Cajus insists? There's always the risk of being a bit too clever for your own good in such a production, but the trick is not to stretch the work too far away from what makes it funny in the first place. A comic operetta might not seem like it can bear up to such examination, but this one is after all based on a Shakespeare drama.

You get a sense that the director knows exactly what makes The Merry Wives of Windsor tick, and it's Sir John Falstaff. He also recognises that in terms of the singing roles in Nicolai's drama, Falstaff doesn't really get top billing, but is more of a catalyst character than a principal one, one who by the conclusion here is indeed the "Lord of Misrule". The real drama however is going on in the marriage of Frau and Herr Fluth and in the young love of Anna Reich (Anne Page) and Fenton, with the other characters offering opportunities for additional comic routines and complications. Only Verdi, and only in the maturity of his final opera Falstaff, is really capable of tackling the magnificence of one of Shakespeare's greatest creations.

Otto Nicolai needs a little help in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and the director helps him out by, counter-intuitively it seems, actually keeping Falstaff off the stage as much as possible to preserve the enigma. It's almost as if Falstaff is too big for the stage - which in more ways than one, he sort of is. In Act I, where Frau Fluth takes her flirtations a little further than you might expect, Sir John remains enigmatically behind the veil of the four-poster bed. He's not so big however that he needs to be hidden in a linen basket, but in this version - whether he really is an invention of the characters' imaginations or some other reason (health and safety maybe?) - he's carried off in a small vase. Likewise Act II's drinking songs here become a multitude of Falstaffs in the nightmare of Herr Fluth, but by Act III he gradually starts to take on a physical form and, at the same, becomes almost mythological.

Inevitably some ideas in the production work better than others. The production could do with a little more dialogue to pad out the drama, but that's hardly the main concern in Nicolai's Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor. The music is lovely, and that's what you really want to hear, not a lot of dialogue. The psychiatrist concept at least keeps the opera playful and concise and proves to be a reasonably good way of eliminating all those pages of German spoken text. Despite having a concept built around him not appearing often on the stage, Franz Hawlata does get across the larger-than-life nature of Falstaff across, particularly in the final Act, but it's Anneke Luyten's Frau Fluth that keeps the performance light, witty and vibrant. Christian Zacharias conducting and a terrific performance from the Wallonie-Liège orchestra ensures that the work positively sparkles.

Links: Medici.tv, Culturebox

Offenbach - La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein

Jacques Offenbach - La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein

Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liège - 2013

Cyril Englebert, Stefano Mazzonis Di Pralafera, Patricia Fernandez, Sébastien Droy, Lionel Lhote, Sophie Junker, Jean-Philippe Corre, Giovanni Iovino, Patrick Delcour, Roger Joakim

Culturebox Live Internet Streaming - 27 December 2013

With their witty entertaining comic plots and an abundance of catchy tunes, it's easy to underestimate the cleverness of Jacques Offenbach's popular operettas. It's also easy to overlook the historical relevance of the works and the daring of the satire contained in them. A raucous opéra bouffe written for the Paris Exhibition of 1867 just three years before the Franco-Prussian war, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein for example not only played to the crowned heads of Europe - Napoleon III, Alexander II, the Emperor Franz-Joseph of Austria and Otto von Bismark of Prussia among them - but Offenbach's comic operetta even made fun of them in this outrageous military satire.

Historical context aside, Offenbach's works are still capable today of striking home with contemporary relevance. There's no doubt much that could be made here of a war being manufactured by an influential Baron just so that a Duchess can amuse herself organising her own military regiment, causing havoc in the ranks in the process by promoting her favourite above those with merited rank. This however is not a route followed by the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège, the company's Artistic Director Stefano Mazzonis Di Pralafera preferring to show that La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein is above all else a fine example of the kind of comic entertainment that Offenbach excelled in producing. Moving far away not only from the historical context of the work but also significantly rewriting characters and situations, the war in this version of La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein is a kind of Masterchef competition.

Here, in the Opéra Royal de Wallonie production then, Fritz is a humble dishwasher in the kitchen of a restaurant owned managed by Grand Duchess of Gérolstein. The Duchess does indeed organise her kitchen like a military operation and taking something of a fancy to the handsome dishwasher, promotes him to super-chef over the head of Chief Chef Boum. Boum is outraged and goes into competition working for a rival restaurant, but Prince Paul - recast here as the restaurant sommelier - is also extremely put out, since he's been trying to get the Duchess to marry him for ages. Fritz is a bit dumb however and doesn't realise the nature of the Duchess' intentions, so when he prepares to marry his beloved Wanda, the Duchess joins the aggrieved conspirators who are planning to launch a counter-attack against the new superchef who has cunningly won the 'Guerre des Chefs' competition through the use of strong alcohol.

There's evidently then quite a bit of rewriting here of Henry Meilhac and Ludovic Halevy's libretto for Offenbach's comedy, and it extends beyond the spoken dialogue sections through to the songs as well. It certainly stretches the intentions of the original material and dilutes the satire of the kind of situations and personal resentments that can lead to war and have much more serious consequences. Arguably however, particularly since there's not much to be gained nowadays from satirising the Franco-Prussian war, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein must work primarily as a comedy. Despite the cleverness of a concept that is ripe for satire - presumably TV cookery shows and competitions are as popular in Belgium as they are in the UK - and some witty modern touches that get a laugh (recasting Baron Grog as Monsieur Redbul, for example), it doesn't quite come across as all that funny however without the bite of the military satire.

As it stands however, the Opéra Royal de Wallonie production of La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein is nonetheless deliciously light and entertaining. The production design is stylish in the way that is typical of how Stefano Mazzonis Di Pralafera treats such opéra comique material. Considerable attention is paid to developing distinct characters and personalities, good use is made of the space of the stage, with plenty of comic interplay, background gags and dancers providing constant movement and visual entertainment. With all the jaunty Offenbach melodies, boosted here with military-like marches, it's all entirely in keeping with the nature of the work and there's never a dull moment. There's even a 'Can-Can' thrown in for good measure at the end here.

There's also a special kind of singing required for opéra comique that requires deft performers capable of good comic interplay and timing, as well as a certain fleetness and brightness for the delivery of the often rapid-fire dialogue and fast rhythms. Sébastien Droy handles this all marvellously as the dumb but likeable Fritz, his exchanges with Boum, the Duchess and Wanda are all spot on. Patricia Fernandez is a little bit breathless and unsteady in the face of such challenges and struggles through the last act, but she has loads of personality as the Grande-Duchesse and carries the role well. The supporting roles are hard to fault with good turns from Giovanni Iovino as the speech-impaired Paul, Lionel Lhote as the self-important Boum and from Sophie Junker as a bright and vivacious Wanda.

The Opéra Royal de Wallonie production of La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein was streamed live on 27th December 2013 and is still available for viewing on the Culturebox website for France Television. There are no region restrictions but the subtitles are in French only.  They do however they extend to the revised spoken dialogue as well as the "tunes".