As the primary opera by a lady commissioned and introduced by the Vienna State Opera, Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando, “a fictional musical biography in 19 scenes”, was headline information even earlier than its premiere in 2019. Neuwirth and her librettist Catherine Filloux’s adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s story of an Elizabethan aristocrat who travels by way of 4 centuries, switching genders en route, extends the chronology of the novel from 1928, the 12 months of its publication, by way of to the current day, taking within the Holocaust and the second world struggle, the social upheavals of the Nineteen Sixties and the consumerism and greed of the 80s, proper as much as the rightwing populism of Trump.
That’s an terrible lot of historical past to cram right into a single stage work, and despite the fact that Orlando lasts three hours, and there’s a spoken commentary to offer a story thread, it leaves little room for actual musical or psychological characterisation. Neuwirth’s rating, fusing orchestral, digital and sampled sounds, is commonly bewitching regardless of her slightly unengaging vocal strains, whereas the usage of musical quotations, from Elizabethan polyphony to Girl Gaga, is definitely entertaining. However the wit of Woolf’s unique is nowhere to be discovered, and dramatically the opera will get thinner because it goes on. The ultimate scenes, by which Neuwirth and Filloux introduce the character of Orlando’s non-binary baby, performed by the cabaret performer Justin Vivian Bond, appear extra like noisy sloganising than convincing music theatre, and the music itself feels far much less hanging, regardless of the looks of an on stage band.
The Vienna manufacturing, although, clearly didn’t stint on something. A number of the sense of grandeur could also be misplaced on a small display, however the usage of video, with texts projected on to the set, in addition to the luxurious costumes by Comme des Garçons, is definitely lavish. The director is Polly Graham, who took over the manufacturing solely a few months earlier than the premiere, by which period presumably the visuals had been finalised; she definitely marshals the spectacle effectively, however may do little in regards to the lack of depth within the characters, who typically appear extra caricature than flesh and blood.
As Orlando, the mezzo Kate Lindsey is excellent in what's a massively demanding position; the narrator, Anna Clementi (a late substitute, apparently, for Fiona Shaw) is much less convincing, whereas Constance Hauman supplies a telling cameo because the Queen. Matthias Pintscher is the conductor, effectively coordinating all the things; the mixed effort is super, the ultimate impact slightly lower than may need been hoped.
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John Eliot Gardiner’s touring variations of the three surviving Monteverdi operas have been the highlights of the composer’s 450th-anniversary 12 months in 2017, and recordings of these live performance stagings are actually being launched by Opus Arte. L’Orfeo and Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria have appeared up to now, each taken from the performances in La Fenice, Venice; they seize very nicely the uncomplicated energy of those modern-dress live performance stagings, directed by Gardiner and Elsa Rooke, with a troupe of singers who tackle roles in every of the operas. It’s the dramatic energy of Monteverdi’s music that comes by way of most strongly, precisely because it ought to.
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