Director, Adele Thomas; Set and costume designer, Molly O’Cathain, conductor, Peter Whelan; orchestra: Irish Baroque Orchestra. Cast: – Bajazet: Gianluca Margheri; Tamerlano: James Laing; Asteria: Niamh O’Sullivan; Andronicus: Eric Jurenas; Irene: Claire Booth; Idaspe: Aoife Miskelly
Director, Adele Thomas; Set and costume designer, Molly O’Cathain, conductor, Peter Whelan; orchestra: Irish Baroque Orchestra. Cast: – Bajazet: Gianluca Margheri; Tamerlano: James Laing; Asteria: Niamh O’Sullivan; Andronicus: Eric Jurenas; Irene: Claire Booth; Idaspe: Aoife Miskelly
This was a stunning evening of music drama, if ultimately a bit wearing….! Again, it’s quite an interesting question to ask – what would an early 18th century Italian audience have expected from a performance of this work. I am sure that they would not be that interested in the silly plot, and that their main focus would have been on their favourite singers performing set-piece arias and on their favourite tunes (this is a pasticciato opera, meaning that it strings together arias from different operas that were popular at the time, as well as some original music by Vivaldi). This performance focused on strong singing and spectacularly good playing, all of which hopefully would have been to the taste of the original audience. The fact that it was being performed in the Linbury Theatre, hollowed out of the depths below the Covent Garden building, meant it all felt very close and personal – a wonderful space to hear singers perform these taxing roles. There’s a nice trailer at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_iwm7SSD0Q
I have in the past in this blog grumbled about rushed over-emphatic period instrument performances, but this really needed the bite and snap, the propulsive beat, which the Irish Baroque Orchestra provided. The 11 players offered rasping Baroque strings, whooping Baroque horns, and the deep growls of the strummed theorbo, giving therefore a huge bounce and zest to each aria, with an outstanding rhythmic punch that made the fastish ones among them almost danceable – and indeed the crazy Tamerlano did cavort to some of them! Many of the arias moved with whiplash energy, and had the characteristically Vivaldi flurries of strings we’ve heard from his concertos, with Richard Whelan bouncing up and down, directing the performance from his harpsichord, to add to the energy.
The set – there was only one – was a wooden walled set of boxes, essentially a prison cell but which, with light, could also be a palace and which could turn from grey to gold with lighting combinations. The only props were a large chain and ball attached to the ceiling, for the imprisoned Bajazet at various points, a tray of glasses, and a hypothermic syringe to sedate Tamerlano with from time to time (and eventually kill him!)
Stand out star was James Laing as a psychopathic ruler of the first magnitude, limping and lurching crazily across the stage until sedated or collapsing in a seizure. Goodness knows what he was doing to his counter-tenor voice in the process but the results were thrilling. The other strong performers on stage were the Asteria, Niamh O’Sullivan, the spectacular Irene, Claire Booth, who had the most gob-stoppingly difficult aria of the evening (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSzctuPiNWM where someone else performs this), while Aoife Miskelly had a delightful stage presence as the watchful and faintly disapproving Iaspe, with the every-ready syringe to hand. As Bajazet, Gianluca Margheri doesn’t have to do much apart from sound noble, and Eric Jurenas made the best he could of the part given to the feeble Andronicus.
For the first hour and a half, I bounced along with the cast, foot-tapping and feeling energised. Ultimately it got too much and I just felt exhausted by this thriller of an opera by the end – but a great evening with some remarkable singing!
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