Opera
CD and Other Review

Review: Handel: Tamerlano (Il Pomo d’Oro/Minassi)

Handel’s Tamerlano, written for the Royal Academy in 1724, is something of a secret pleasure for fans of 18th-century Italian opera. Lacking the magical stage machinery of the likes of Rinaldo, and with a low quotient of showcase arias to tickle the sensation seeker’s ear, it nevertheless has a claim to greatness. Why? It has one of the composer’s most grimly determined plots and a set of characters upon which Handel lavishes his utmost psychological insight.  In 1402, the Mongol herdsman Timur defeated his enemy, the Turkish sultan Bayezid, who history relates he had carted around in a cage for months afterwards. In the opera, the wicked (i.e. Eastern) tyrant Tamerlano has designs on Bajazet’s daughter, Asteria, and sends his ally, the Greek (hence noble) Andronico to convey his desires to the maiden and her vengeful father. Unbeknownst to Tamerlano, Andronico is himself in love with Asteria and from these complications a tense, potentially bloody political opera ensues.  Handel wrote the work at speed, as was his wont, but revised it at his leisure on more than one occasion in order to create as tight a musical drama as he was capable of. It culminates in a thrilling scene of…

June 15, 2014
Opera
CD and Other Review

Review: Gounod: Faust (Kaufmann, Metropolitan Opera/Nézet-Séguin)

Gounod’s Faust is the sort of opera that gives the genre a bad name. Its libretto is based on a play that takes Part 1 of Goethe’s original mystical morality tale and encrusts it with dowdy Victoriana and shifts the focus to the tortures inflicted on poor Marguerite whose eventual redemption hardly seems a fair consolation in today’s secular world; the lovely music coats a bitter pill that takes quite an effort to swallow.  Des McAnuff’s production attempts to restore some of the original’s dramatic gravitas by shifting the opening scene to the Los Alamos laboratories with Faust as a tortured atomic scientist. The arresting imagery during the overture gave an initial frisson so I looked forward to further clever analogies but apart from the obvious effects during the Walpurgisnacht they failed to materialise so the concept proved to be only half-baked. There were other fine visual moments such as the giant project images of Marguerite’s face but the unit set of Faust’s laboratory didn’t seem to be used to its full potential and my attention wandered.  Musically however, one couldn’t ask for more with a splendid cast of singing actors doing their best to sell the piece. Kaufmann is…

June 11, 2014