City Recital Hall, Sydney
November 29, 2018

Pinchgut’s latest production boasts two major selling points. The first is star American mezzo and early music specialist Vivica Genaux. The second is the intriguing excavation of an opera by long neglected German master Johann Adolph Hasse. Throw in the ever excellent Erin Helyard and the Orchestra of the Antipodes, plus a cast up to the challenges of Hasse’s florid writing and you’re on to a winner. The only thing keeping this night at the opera from taking off is a standoffish production that makes a trickily static work feel far more lethargic than it ought to.

Vivica Genaux in Pinchgut Opera’s Artaserse. Photo © Brett Boardman

Hasse’s Artaserse, based on Metastasio’s much adapted libretto, is confusing to recount but somehow easy enough to grasp in the theatre. It begins when King Xerxes of Persia exiles our leading man, commoner Arbace, for having the temerity to court his daughter, Mandane. Arbace’s father, a power hungry Artabano, is having none of that – he assassinates the king and convinces his heir, Artaserse, that his brother Darius is responsible. Darius is promptly executed, whereupon Arbace is discovered...