Thursday, November 24, 2016
A magnificent, playful and character-focused Das Rheingold in Melbourne: Herald Sun Review
In Wagner’s epic journey through the four-part Der Ring des Nibelungen, the concept of time diminishes and an expansive musical landscape opens to set its story of power, greed, dirty deals and the price of love with the power to knock at the conscience. That story started magnificently again Monday night in Das Rheingold (Wagner’s ‘Preliminary Evening’), the first part in Opera Australia’s mammoth Ring Cycle that premiered in 2013 by director Neil Armfield.
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| James Johnson as Wotan and Jacqueline Dark as Fricka |
Props are few but none more cleverly lighthearted than the magician’s cabinet, the Tarnhelm. With Alice Babidge’s costumes combining an eclectic mix of power suits, bathing costumes, workwear, feathers and sparkle to define gods, mortals, giants, dwarfs and water nymphs, the total effect is a tantalising breath alongside the swells and contractions of Wagner’s score which conductor Pietari Inkinen rendered with grand sensitivity.
Possession of the Wagnerian might of voice to project well clear of the polished 135-piece Melbourne Ring Orchestra below wasn’t always evident in all but nothing can be taken away from compelling and distinctive characterisation by the strong cast.
Standing vulnerable in his realm as Wotan, ruler of the Gods, James Johnson wore the weight rather than the crown of authority, his richly seasoned and strong-topped baritone needing bottom strength to ride the orchestra. As Fricka his wife, Jacqueline Dark added creamy dark-voiced dominance. Michael Honeyman was a solid oaky-resonant Donner alongside the smooth ringing tenor of James Egglestone’s Froh with fright and hope equally portrayed by Graeme Macfarlane’s dear cowering Mime.
Lorina Gore, Jane Ede and Dominica Matthews sparkled as the mocking, leggy and alluring Rhine maidens, riding their crowd assisted pompon-gold hoard in glittering form and Hyeseoung Kwon brightly lit up a dragged about Freia
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| Andreas Conrad as Loge and Warwick Fyfe as Alberich |
Most of all, it was Warwick Fyfe’s night as the nerdy and gnarly Alberich, renouncer of love and absconder of the treasure. In a reprise of his 2013 performance, Fyfe completed the music, commanded the stage and, with his intense and fulsome baritone, conveyed his character’s stench with utter magnetism.
As the gods climb the stairs to Valhalla in a glorious rainbow of chorus-girl colour, a chapter closes but the artistic chemistry at work in Armfield’s concept might achieve for its audience the potential to etch itself on raw music long after the production is over.
Opera Australia
State Theatre, Arts Centre until December 9
Photo credit Jeff Busby
Rating: four stars
Two popular works, two very different evenings and one champion conductor: La bohème and Carmen in Ljubljana
LA BOHÈME
Hats, coats, gloves and scarves came off for a seat at Slovenian National Opera's evening in wintery Paris for Puccini's perennially popular work, La bohème. Popular it is, but still there were quite a few empty seats in Ljubljana's compact house for director Vinko Möderndorfer's now 10 year-old production.
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| Act 2, La bohème, Slovenian National Opera and Ballet |
Marko Japelj's sets were simple and serviceable with Act 1 and Act 4's spacious grey stud-walled garret with side-stage stair taking the appearance of being someplace back-of-set. Slavic lace-making skills got a good workout in Alenka Bartl's cuffed and colourful satin 'clown' costumes but the bohemians were thankfully outfitted in more subdued tones and attire. Annoyingly, the staging was hampered by poorly cued lighting.
Starting tentatively, Martina Zadro's Mimi leaned on the dull and demure side but her rich and bright soprano blossomed pleasingly. Branko Robinšak gave Rodolfo warm-rounded appeal, solid projection and sang with conviction, though he seemed creepily more like Mimi's father and the sparks rarely appeared to jump from one to the other.
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| Martina Zadro as Mimi |
Maybe a lack of budding little songsters among Ljubljana's ankle biters accounted for the sadly missed kids chorus but, despite the gaudy costumes, the men and women of the chorus shone appealingly. Down below, however, was where the best was happening. Excellence was sustained in the pit under conductor Jaroslav Kyzlink's sympathetic, never grandstanding approach.
But overall, the dots weren't really joining in Ljubljana's La bohème even though the music breathed marvellously and worthy vocals sprouted. It's high time the 'clowns' move on.
Slovenian National Opera and Ballet, Ljubljana
10th November 2016
CARMEN
Taking its audience somewhere warmer on a cold and wet Ljubljana evening, Slovenian National Opera's newish 2015 production of Carmen by British director Pamela Howard would prove a welcome and highly satisfying escape.
Directed and designed with great care, detail and expression, Howard's vision magnified the stage and keenly struck many emotional cords. In particular, Howard showed depth of skill at crowd management - Act 4's spectacle of almost 80 singers on stage was presented with pulsating reality. It was also great to see Ljubljana's children on stage after missing their jollity in La bohème the evening before and another welcome luxury with English surtitles posted.
Blessed with superb musicianship, conductor Jaroslav Kyzlink repeated his superb form after the prior evening's La bohème by delivering a Carmen plump with clarity, polish and ongoing tension.
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| Nuska Drascek Rojko as Carmen |
As Don José, Aljaž Farasin performed superbly, giving him great complexity, vulnerability and pent up aggression. It wasn't a big voice but Farasin sang with charismatic warmth, shapeliness and a tender sweet vibrato. A distinguished Escamillo came with Jože Vidic's hearty meat-and-gravy baritone but the upper register tended to stretch out unattractively. As an unflattering and peasant-dressed Micaëla, honeyed soprano Andreja Zakonjšek Krt made an admirable, if not absorbing mark.
When you get crowd scenes so alive with wide-ranging mannerisms and vibrant, unified singing to go with them, you have to applaud all involved. The men, women and children of the chorus deserve credit indeed.
Ljubljana's Carmen from Slovenian National Opera might not have lavish wealth behind it, but it undeniably has the impact to drive home its tragedy in riveting form. Nuška Drašček Rojko is a major stake in its success and following her engagements should certainly come with rewards.
And as it turned out, I also got to hear Jaroslav Kyzlink conduct Smetana's The Bartered Bride just a few days later in Prague and the musical richness continued with similar ebullience and feeling. There's a conductor I'd like to hear again.
Slovenian National Opera, Ljubljana
11th November 2016
Friday, November 18, 2016
Splendidly sung, astutely referenced and never dull: Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots at Deutsche Oper Berlin
On opening night at Deutsche Opera's new production of Meyerbeer's grand French opera, Les Huguenots, the bravos and boos rang out as director David Alden and his creative team took to the stage. Thankfully the bravos outweighed the boos in Alden's brazenly teasing, astutely referenced and edgy staging. Over its more than four-hour duration, however never dull, it didn't come without a few sidestepping oddities and a little derrière discomfort.
Amongst the epic orchestral grandeur of Meyerbeer's score and irony housed in Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps' libretto, little flecks of comic additive surface that also comment on religious hypocrisy raised by the 'pleasure-seeking' Catholics at odds with the 'pious' Huguenots, each accusing the other of blasphemy. The Protestant Huguenots don't emerge without being harmed. As tensions increase, "Dieu le veut" or "God wills it" is signposted in large letters above the stage, giving sickening justification for what culminates in a religious assault and the bloody massacre of thousands on St Bartholomew's Day. In Meyerbeer, Scribe and Deschamps's work that premiered in 1836, the historical drama (set in the actual time of the events of 1572) plays out while misinterpreted circumstances surrounding a cross-religious love between the Protestant Raoul and Catholic Valentine ends in a tragic mess.
Alden resets the events unhistorically with hints of fin-de-siècle flair that combine opulence and austerity in a series of handsome and eye-catching strokes with the creative team coming to the party magnificently. An open trussed roof lingers above the stage for many a scene in set designer Giles Cadle's numerous scene changes that not only impart legibility but give Alden utilisation of the stage's entire volume to mix intimate fore-stage scenes with mid-to-deep spatial variations. Costumes by Constance Hoffman clearly delineate the Catholics as distinguished top-hatted and tailed gentleman and elegant-gowned ladies alongside the Huguenots who are drably garbed in grey, like an infestation of rats needing extermination. Adam Silverman's lighting paints a masterpiece of atmospheric appropriateness.
Cadle responds freshly and dutifully to the drama many a time, including reference to Act 1's song to the wine of fair Touraine with the Count of Nevers's chateau hall festooned in burgundy and Act 4's lofty-walled salon covered with Nevers's brave predecessors as he sings of his refusal to participate in the massacre as a murderer.
For the first three acts of the five-act work, Alden's playful approach pushes the envelope with showy entertainment that tends to divert attention from the long dramatic arc. Poor-mannered gents singing arias from tabletops, synchronised foot-moving from the gentlemen's sofa, a jaunty cabaret-like banquet with orgiastic tones featuring balloon-clad beauties, then two pretty maids feather-dusting the leading man - Alden's touch teases but it's neither destructive nor crass.
On the other hand, the final two acts do a complete turn as Raoul arrives to meet Valentine, overhears the plot to murder the Huguenots and is torn between cautioning his people and remaining with Valentine. This shift, with all the pathos and sensitivity that Alden exposed between the amorous pair, did more to strike the historical heart of the drama than all the politicking surrounding them.
But without such a talented and resilient cast as the work demands, time could crawl and, here, every one of the long list of soloists clearly demonstrated their worthiness, both in solo and ensemble display. Juan Diego Flórez luxuriously outfitted the Protestant gentleman Raoul with breathtaking chiaroscuro and dynamic sensibility in voice, sensitive and courageous in action. Opening in superb form to the accompaniment of the solo viola d'amore with "Plus blanche que la blanche hermine” was only a blimp on what was to come. Throughout, note after note provided tantalising listening as the voice reached poignantly deeper while punctuating the air gloriously higher with its delicately serrated vibrato and caressing with its warm viscous tone.
It takes some time before femininity slips in and when it does it arrives in two gorgeously contrasting forms. Angelic and pure-toned soprano Olesya Golovneva's Valentine (daughter of Count de Saint-Bris) began primly and reservedly before becoming more determined and finally heroic in a suitably measured performance. Convincingly heartfelt alongside Flórez, her tormented state of love, faith and duty were masterly brought together with fluidity and force in Act 4's room in Nevers's Parisian town-house.
Oppositely, Patrizia Ciofi dazzles with her slightly zany and playful yet commanding Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre. Ciofi opened with sensuous appeal before singing with a lusciously crazed elegance, providing one of the night's early highlights as she comically took her agile coloratura descent while undressing for a regal change in "O beau pays de la Touraine".
Immense bellowing bass Ante Jerkunica preceded Ciofi in a compelling portrayal of anti-Catholic sentiment in the ricocheting "Piff Paff" aria as Raoul's servant and Huguenot soldier, the loose gun Marcel. In every appearance Jerkunica loomed high as a rough diamond while not only belting out brilliant strength but capturing the quiet, doleful and fine-edged voice of the inner soul. Other noteworthy performances came from Irene Roberts, with her spritely and beautifully ornamented soprano, as the Queen's Page Urbain, Marc Barrard's permeating resonant baritone as the Count of Nevers and Derek Welton's knock-out. clear and authoritative Count of Saint-Bris. Suffering from disunity, the mens chorus lacked the dignified sound of their appearance early on, but transformed marvellously alongside their refined female colleagues.
With Les Huguenots comes an intricate tapestry of music that conductor Michele Mariotti steered commendably, perfectly alternating exposed orchestral showpiece passages with attention to and support of his massed cast. By the time the horrific massacre ends, carried out with dark stylistic theatricality, the eyes and ears have absorbed a walloping great artistic achievement that you're likely to want to see a second time for so many reasons.
Deutsche Oper Berlin
Until 4th February 2017
Production photographs: Bettina Stöss
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| Juan Diego Flórez (centre), Act 1, Les Huguenots |
Alden resets the events unhistorically with hints of fin-de-siècle flair that combine opulence and austerity in a series of handsome and eye-catching strokes with the creative team coming to the party magnificently. An open trussed roof lingers above the stage for many a scene in set designer Giles Cadle's numerous scene changes that not only impart legibility but give Alden utilisation of the stage's entire volume to mix intimate fore-stage scenes with mid-to-deep spatial variations. Costumes by Constance Hoffman clearly delineate the Catholics as distinguished top-hatted and tailed gentleman and elegant-gowned ladies alongside the Huguenots who are drably garbed in grey, like an infestation of rats needing extermination. Adam Silverman's lighting paints a masterpiece of atmospheric appropriateness.
 |
| Olesya Golovneva, Patrizia Ciofi and Juan Diego Flórez |
For the first three acts of the five-act work, Alden's playful approach pushes the envelope with showy entertainment that tends to divert attention from the long dramatic arc. Poor-mannered gents singing arias from tabletops, synchronised foot-moving from the gentlemen's sofa, a jaunty cabaret-like banquet with orgiastic tones featuring balloon-clad beauties, then two pretty maids feather-dusting the leading man - Alden's touch teases but it's neither destructive nor crass.
On the other hand, the final two acts do a complete turn as Raoul arrives to meet Valentine, overhears the plot to murder the Huguenots and is torn between cautioning his people and remaining with Valentine. This shift, with all the pathos and sensitivity that Alden exposed between the amorous pair, did more to strike the historical heart of the drama than all the politicking surrounding them.
 |
| Olesya Golovneva and Juan Diego Flórez in Act 4, Les Huguenots |
It takes some time before femininity slips in and when it does it arrives in two gorgeously contrasting forms. Angelic and pure-toned soprano Olesya Golovneva's Valentine (daughter of Count de Saint-Bris) began primly and reservedly before becoming more determined and finally heroic in a suitably measured performance. Convincingly heartfelt alongside Flórez, her tormented state of love, faith and duty were masterly brought together with fluidity and force in Act 4's room in Nevers's Parisian town-house.
Oppositely, Patrizia Ciofi dazzles with her slightly zany and playful yet commanding Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre. Ciofi opened with sensuous appeal before singing with a lusciously crazed elegance, providing one of the night's early highlights as she comically took her agile coloratura descent while undressing for a regal change in "O beau pays de la Touraine".
 |
| Derek Welton and ensemble in Act 3, "Dieu le veut" Les Huguenots |
With Les Huguenots comes an intricate tapestry of music that conductor Michele Mariotti steered commendably, perfectly alternating exposed orchestral showpiece passages with attention to and support of his massed cast. By the time the horrific massacre ends, carried out with dark stylistic theatricality, the eyes and ears have absorbed a walloping great artistic achievement that you're likely to want to see a second time for so many reasons.
Deutsche Oper Berlin
Until 4th February 2017
Production photographs: Bettina Stöss
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Evocative, confronting and a knock-out vocal beauty: Canadian Opera Company's Ariodante in Toronto
Canadian Opera Company's new and exhilarating production of Handel's Ariodante (1735) comes with a curiously evocative and confronting adaptation by British director Richard Jones, over three hours of radiant Baroque music and knock-out vocal beauty to accompany it.
Jones pulls Ariodante's story of love, honour and deception out of its royal Medieval Scotland setting and drags the audience into his mid-20th century Hebridean island adaptation as voyeurs of a small, idiosyncratic community. It's an isolated place steeped in puritanical religious stringencies in which Jones emphasises harshness and injustices explicitly, one where women serve their men, abuse goes unpunished and a 'priest' can do what the heck he likes.
Removing the royal titles of the original, Ariodante is a working class scrubber in love with Ginevra, daughter of the island's governor (the King of Scotland in Handel's original). They have his blessing to marry but the insidious Polinesso desires Ginevra (in Jones's version he's disguised as a visiting priest) and dupes the home helper Dalinda, who pines for him, into disguising herself as Ginevra. Bragging to Ariodante that Ginevra loves him, he sets up the trap that reveals Ginevra (the disguised Dalinda) accepting him into her bedroom in order to prove his point. The repercussions are immediate.
Drawing much attention to Polinesso, Jones shifts dramatic weight to the villainy and, though Polinesso's priestly disguise creates some ambiguity in the drama, at the very least, it acts to generate the blind trust a community has in religious cloth.
The action occurs across three distinct rooms of a rudimentary cabin - bedroom, communal/dining area and kitchen. Adding interest, invisible walls and doors respectively separate the action and guide character movements. Resembling an entrenched working class world one might encounter in a Lars von Trier movie, a chilling edginess pervades this remote society that British set and costume designer Ultz and lighting designer Mimi Jordan Sherin have created.
Jones tears this 'opera seria' drama apart successfully and balances gravity with lighter relief. Sometimes the two share the same moment with some scenes so confronting, including Polinesso's rape of Dalinda, that they're almost too hard to watch. Then, where ballet would close each of the three acts, not only does Lucy Burge's choreographed Scottish dancing effectively convey the tightness of community, but the clever and stunning use of puppets entertainingly make comment on the what-ifs or what-will-be within the story.
Most expertly handled is the way Jones consistently employs pronounced theatricality and gently choreographed slow-motion drama to extend, enliven and interpret the text, marvellously connecting the action to the lengthy repetition of lines in the A-B-A Baroque 'da capo' ternary form.
One after another, Handel's arias unleash their glory from a strong cast led by four women of magnanimous talent, two in trouser roles.
Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote leaps from strength to strength as a virile yet sensitive and laddish Ariodante, drawing on resources from which only the best can do. In the voice there is lightness, power, beauty and a fleshy coloratura but, most astoundingly, a perfectly employed and descriptive rough-and-ready contrast to reflect Ariodante's working class status. The moment we see Dalinda thrown wildly about Ginevra's bedroom by Polinesso, and Ariodante stands disbelievingly outside assuming it's Ginevra, Coote brilliantly imparts Act II's "Tu preparati a morire" with immeasurable suffering and haunting pity.
As Ginevra, Jane Archibald is a radiant stage presence, depicting her with hopefulness and singing her with pathos. Sweet daintiness and angry outburst are treated with equal aplomb in a voice that displays great control and that rises to clean top notes. The great tragedy of being condemned by her father as a whore is whipped into one of many vocal highlights and riveting theatre in Act II's "Il mio crudel martoro".
Varduhi Abrahamyan slips between two personas, one the sometimes Rossini-like comical buffo character of Don Alonso as the 'priest', the other with a believable egocentric machismo she portrays as the vile Polinesso. The most clearly enunciated of the principals, Abrahamyan's warmth of tone and appealing flickering vibrato resonate with strength.
But then comes soprano Ambur Braid's formidable performance as Dalinda, one you can't help but hold your breadth and lose yourself in. To make sense of her character, Jones seems to want to make her gullible, simple-minded and deeply affected by a victimised past. Braid gives all this with frightful pain as she ill-thinkingly pursues the love of a brutish sado-masochist. Cowering on the sidelines in her apron, Braid's rich and fulsome mezzo-soprano poignantly imbues Dalinda with a nobility that seems to beg respect. Before the jubilation of Act I's finale, Braid showcases a fluttering and acrobatic coloratura amongst a marvellous field of colour, contour and shade as she sings of her love for Polinesso in "Il primo ardor" with the audience no doubt wishing they could knock some sense into her.
Tall, handsome and kilted, Johannes Weisser exudes overall good-mannered governance as the 'King of Scotland', bar when dragging his wrongly accused daughter before the community to shame her. Weisser doesn't look quite old enough to convince as Ginevra's father but he comes with pleasing oaky toned richness and a robustly centred voice that travels with greatest ease to the lowest range.
In love with Dalinda, Owen McCausland's Lurcanio is convincingly forthright and there's impressive resonant power and clarity to his brawny bass-baritone if but a tendency to overexert. A small chorus of 12 snake through the cabin, contributing strong in voice as well as dancing and delightfully acting as puppeteers.
The list of highlights are extensive but, unlike a few daft patrons who departed after Act II, Act III reaches breathtaking heights with three thrilling consecutive arias. First comes Coote's "Cieca notte" (Ariodante) as she makes dazzling register shifts while displaying seemingly immense laryngeal pleasure. Next, Braid's fireball coloratura sets alight "Neghittosi or voi che fate?" (Dalinda) and Abrahamyan follows with an impassioned, smooth and confident "Dover, giustizia, amor" (Polinesso).
Handel's score took a moment to translate into its exhilarating potential under conductor Johannes Debus's command, but it eventually rose and comfortably cruised alongside the quality on stage. Apart from some wobbly brass peering through, the COC Orchestra showed their stamina with evenness of playing.
In presenting Handel's Ariodante, COC not only shows off the beauty of Baroque music in full bloom with a superlative cast, they also give it modem theatrical relevance in a fresh and insightful interpretation.
Canadian Opera Company
Four Seasons Performing Arts Centre, Toronto
Until 4th November
Production photos: Michael Cooper
 |
| A scene from Canadian Opera Company's Ariodante |
Removing the royal titles of the original, Ariodante is a working class scrubber in love with Ginevra, daughter of the island's governor (the King of Scotland in Handel's original). They have his blessing to marry but the insidious Polinesso desires Ginevra (in Jones's version he's disguised as a visiting priest) and dupes the home helper Dalinda, who pines for him, into disguising herself as Ginevra. Bragging to Ariodante that Ginevra loves him, he sets up the trap that reveals Ginevra (the disguised Dalinda) accepting him into her bedroom in order to prove his point. The repercussions are immediate.
Drawing much attention to Polinesso, Jones shifts dramatic weight to the villainy and, though Polinesso's priestly disguise creates some ambiguity in the drama, at the very least, it acts to generate the blind trust a community has in religious cloth.
 |
| Alice Coote as Ariodante |
Jones tears this 'opera seria' drama apart successfully and balances gravity with lighter relief. Sometimes the two share the same moment with some scenes so confronting, including Polinesso's rape of Dalinda, that they're almost too hard to watch. Then, where ballet would close each of the three acts, not only does Lucy Burge's choreographed Scottish dancing effectively convey the tightness of community, but the clever and stunning use of puppets entertainingly make comment on the what-ifs or what-will-be within the story.
Most expertly handled is the way Jones consistently employs pronounced theatricality and gently choreographed slow-motion drama to extend, enliven and interpret the text, marvellously connecting the action to the lengthy repetition of lines in the A-B-A Baroque 'da capo' ternary form.
One after another, Handel's arias unleash their glory from a strong cast led by four women of magnanimous talent, two in trouser roles.
Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote leaps from strength to strength as a virile yet sensitive and laddish Ariodante, drawing on resources from which only the best can do. In the voice there is lightness, power, beauty and a fleshy coloratura but, most astoundingly, a perfectly employed and descriptive rough-and-ready contrast to reflect Ariodante's working class status. The moment we see Dalinda thrown wildly about Ginevra's bedroom by Polinesso, and Ariodante stands disbelievingly outside assuming it's Ginevra, Coote brilliantly imparts Act II's "Tu preparati a morire" with immeasurable suffering and haunting pity.
 |
| Johanness Weisser, Jane Archibald and Alice Coote |
Varduhi Abrahamyan slips between two personas, one the sometimes Rossini-like comical buffo character of Don Alonso as the 'priest', the other with a believable egocentric machismo she portrays as the vile Polinesso. The most clearly enunciated of the principals, Abrahamyan's warmth of tone and appealing flickering vibrato resonate with strength.
But then comes soprano Ambur Braid's formidable performance as Dalinda, one you can't help but hold your breadth and lose yourself in. To make sense of her character, Jones seems to want to make her gullible, simple-minded and deeply affected by a victimised past. Braid gives all this with frightful pain as she ill-thinkingly pursues the love of a brutish sado-masochist. Cowering on the sidelines in her apron, Braid's rich and fulsome mezzo-soprano poignantly imbues Dalinda with a nobility that seems to beg respect. Before the jubilation of Act I's finale, Braid showcases a fluttering and acrobatic coloratura amongst a marvellous field of colour, contour and shade as she sings of her love for Polinesso in "Il primo ardor" with the audience no doubt wishing they could knock some sense into her.
Tall, handsome and kilted, Johannes Weisser exudes overall good-mannered governance as the 'King of Scotland', bar when dragging his wrongly accused daughter before the community to shame her. Weisser doesn't look quite old enough to convince as Ginevra's father but he comes with pleasing oaky toned richness and a robustly centred voice that travels with greatest ease to the lowest range.
 |
| Jane Archibald, Ambur Braid, Varduhi Abrahamyan |
The list of highlights are extensive but, unlike a few daft patrons who departed after Act II, Act III reaches breathtaking heights with three thrilling consecutive arias. First comes Coote's "Cieca notte" (Ariodante) as she makes dazzling register shifts while displaying seemingly immense laryngeal pleasure. Next, Braid's fireball coloratura sets alight "Neghittosi or voi che fate?" (Dalinda) and Abrahamyan follows with an impassioned, smooth and confident "Dover, giustizia, amor" (Polinesso).
Handel's score took a moment to translate into its exhilarating potential under conductor Johannes Debus's command, but it eventually rose and comfortably cruised alongside the quality on stage. Apart from some wobbly brass peering through, the COC Orchestra showed their stamina with evenness of playing.
In presenting Handel's Ariodante, COC not only shows off the beauty of Baroque music in full bloom with a superlative cast, they also give it modem theatrical relevance in a fresh and insightful interpretation.
Canadian Opera Company
Four Seasons Performing Arts Centre, Toronto
Until 4th November
Production photos: Michael Cooper
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