Director, Daisy Evans; Set Designer, Molly O’cathain; Lighting Designer, Jake Wiltshire; Conductor, Peter Whelan with the Irish Baroque Orchestra. Clistene, Chuma Sijeqa; Aristea, Alexandra Urquiola; Argene, Sarah Richmond; Megacle, Gemma Ní Bhriain; Licida, Meili Li; Aminta, Rachel Redmond; Alcandro, Seán Boylan
Two years or so after Bajazet (an Olivier award-winning production for outstanding achievement in opera), the Irish Baroque Orchestra, Peter Whelan and the Irish National Opera were back in town, at the Linbury, with another hugely enjoyable Vivaldi opera. I’m beginning to have a sense of the difference between Handel and Vivaldi operas: Vivaldi goes on the whole for more medium to fast paced arias, often with intense rhythmic drive, and with exciting string ostinati. Handel seems somehow slower paced, more gentle and melancholy and more nuanced in terms of characterisation for the singers. But the fact that there are about 50 extant Vivaldi operas and I have only heard two of them means I have a lot to explore – very exciting…!!
This was a well-conceived simple production. A bright ring over the stage was suggestive of the Olympics and changed colour as needed, with a floor lit back screen behind the singers, again changing colours. There was also a moveable Amphitheatre used and sometimes split in various ways. The singers were in contemporary gym / sports gear to begin with, and turned into character with the aid of a rack of clothes on either side of the stage – this helps makes the point about assuming identities- not to mention gender – which is the point if the ludicrously complex plot. The singers also function together as a chorus and – given the amount of orchestral only music they also perform actions from the story to fill in some of the gaps. It says something about the way the director managed the action that there were no silly laughs from the audience at the more ludicrous turns of the plot – these sometimes one would imagine cardboard figures really did come across a real people with real emotions, something emphasised by the energy of the young actiong team
People joke about the complexity of Baroque opera plots – l don’t normally have too many problems with the Handel operas I’ve seen but this one did defeat me for a time, so elaborate is the amount of disguise, assumed identities and confusion. There are the usual two couples, though impossibly entangled, and the equally frequent device of getting the right couples together by revealing that two of the four are brother and sister- it all just takes a lot longer and with a lot more chaos before this is worked through, I guess.
The music is very enjoyable. There were at least three stunning numbers By the side of the sleeping Megacle, Lucida sings a most beautiful aria ‘Mentre dormi amor fomenti” – this is absolutely of the same level of beauty as Handel numbers such as “Piangere” from Julius Caesar. The there’s “Siam navi all’onde algenti”, which is a fizzing coloratura aria to end the first half with Aminta (here’s a Cecilia Bartoli Youtube video –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep987vSTsVc) , and Aristea’s fierce aria expressing rage with Licida in the second half is another cracker. I also enjoyed Licida’s “Gemo in un Punto e Fremo”. But almost every number has a catchy tune- there’s little of the routine here in the arias, though some of the recitative are rather long and tedious. I detected a violin run which seemed to have been taken from The Four Seasons……
As with Bajazet, in many ways the musical stars are the orchestra – it is extraordinary how much energy they generate, despite being only two players to each type of stringed instrument, plus a theorbo and harpsichord, and Peter Whelan is extraordinarily generous with his engagement in this music. All the singers were good – the standouts for me were the coloratura singer Rachel Redmond as Aminta, who must surely be destined for more important international roles, plus the Chinese counter-tenor Meili Li as Licida – as readers of this blog may have noted, I normally am not too fond of countertenors and their hooting, but this man’s voice was utterly beautiful; world class singing…….Also Alexandra Urquiola as Aristea struck me as having a strong agile voice and good stage presence. But this was a team, and everyone played their part in what was happening on stage and in the music
I found this trailer, which gives a good idea of how the orchestra sounds in this work, as well as more details on costumes and sets – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEI2hZaEJNk
John's musical journey 