Bajazet, Jorge Navarro Colorado; Asteria, Ellie Laugharne; Tamerlano, Rodrigo Sosa Dal Pozzo; Andronico, James Hall; Irene, April Koyejo-Audiger. Conductor, Jonathan Peter Kenny with the Old Street Band; Director, James Conway; Set & Costume Designer, Rebecca van Beeck; Lighting Designer, Tim van ’t Hof
This performance was enlivened by the occasional off-stage bang from particularly vociferous fireworks, but didn’t need much explosive encouragement, as it was actually a very lively and enjoyable performance. It provided a very interesting comparison with Ottone. Tamerlano as a work is more extrovert and more ‘dramatic’, though with a downbeat ending. The staging I found a bit tame compared to the Vivaldi pasticcio opera ‘Bajazet’, on basically the same story, seen in early February. The latter was completely gripping, with a demented Tamerlano, and a lot of violence. This staging seemed rather tame by comparison =- there were times when Tamerlano began to get a bit restive but for the most part he looked far too stately. He also didn’t look like the son of a goatherd, as he is described by someone in the opera. Sometimes I also felt that Handel hadn’t quite got the balance of the story’s various components quite right – the death of Bajazet goes on for far too long, for instance. There was just one set – as there was with the Linbury Theatre performance and arguably not enough use was made of the complete stage and the platform that had been created. The set design was basically a prison-like series of metal (supposedly) grids, some of which could be climbed up with a platform halfway up, interspersed with a set of colourful panels, blue/grey and orange/brown. The only prop was a very small cage for Bajazet at the beginning.
Once again, I just marvelled at the fertility of the music’s invention and the variety of the arias. There are more fast vocal display arias here compared to Ottone, and some of them were very exciting indeed. The stand out performance was Rodrigo Sosa Dal Pozzo as Tamerlano, who had a big presence and a large but very flexible voice, more than capable of producing dazzling runs and un-hooty counter-tenor top notes. Bajazet – Jorge Navarro Colorado – was also very impressive – a good large and again flexible tenor voice. Andronico is another drippy role, and was sung by the same person as had sung Ottone – again he didn’t make much impression but this could have more to do with the music Handel actually gave him than anything else. Neither of the two female roles Asteria, sung by Ellie Laugharne and Irene, sung by April Koyejo-Audiger were outstanding as performances – they didn’t have quite the purity of tone, the ability to float high notes and variety of expression, and the razor-sharp accuracy on runs, that Tamerlano had – but both were nevertheless perfectly adequate and provided some lovely moments. To have – across the board – such excellent singers of all roles in a small, low-budget, touring company, is a huge treat!
The Old Street Band, with I think more musicians (I don’t recall hearing recorders in Ottone) seemed more energised than in Ottone and their playing in some of the display arias was very exciting
On to Alcina next week……………..
John's musical journey 