Opera
CD and Other Review

Review: Handel: Alcina (Aix-en-Provence Festival)

Katie Mitchell is a director who divides her audience. Some champion the probing psychology of her shows, their meticulous, realist visuals, their staunchly feminist agenda. Others balk at what they see as a prefab, one-size-fits-all approach. But whatever your camp, when Mitchell finds a show to suit her inherent sympathies the result is unassailable. This Alcina, originally staged for the 2015 Aix-en-Provence Festival, is the director at her very best – a marriage of concept and psychology so instinctive, so exhilarating in its invention, that it’s impossible to imagine it bettered. Unpacking the limits of power in all its forms – love, magic, violence, authority – Handel’s opera is one of his most probing emotional portraits, and a piece ripe for Mitchell’s gaze. She pulls back the curtain on Alcina’s sorcery, revealing the blunt, unpalatable mechanisms behind her illusions, showing us the woman not the witch. Chloe Lamford’s designs place us in a decaying doll’s house of a set. Rooms are spread over two floors, but only the central salon is fully lit. Within this magic space Alcina (Patricia Petibon) and Morgana (Anna Prohaska) seduce and subdue their lovers, glorying in their youth and beauty…. Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

November 25, 2016
Opera
CD and Other Review

Review: Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Glyndebourne Opera)

Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio presents an Enlightenment-eye view of the Orient filled with the curiosity of the West for a culture that had receded from warlike enemy to mesmerising neighbour. David McVicar’s genius is to set it in period in this superbly acted production from Glyndebourne. Vicki Mortimer’s warm, detailed designs capture the lure of the Ottoman Empire while McVicar explores the tension between the Pasha (a convert to Islam – a fact usually cut) and Europeans whose ideas of freedom are challenged by a seductive captivity. Konstanze must choose between a sexy, decent man and a contracted marriage to a bit of a stuffed shirt. The dangerous reality of cultural incompatibility is played out between the feisty Blonde and the unmannerly Osmin. Robin Ticciati conducts the period Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with style and verve. Sally Matthews is a noble-voiced Kostanze, secure of coloratura. Martern aller Arten, set dangerously in the Pasha’s bedroom is electric. Edgaras Montvidas is slightly open-toned as Belmonte, but captures the prig who thinks shouting makes foreigners understand him better. Tobias Kehrer is a magnificent Osmin, a vocal dead ringer for Gottlob Frick, perfectly matched by Mari Eriksmoen’s… Continue reading Get unlimited…

November 25, 2016