Sorcery’s dodgy magic hardly ever casts a spell on a contemporary, sceptical viewers, so staging Handel’s witchcraft opera Alcina (1735) is usually a critical problem. Glyndebourne’s new manufacturing presents an answer: transfer the piece away from a mysterious, enchanted island to a different place of equal enchantment – the theatre; particularly, a Nineteen Sixties Italian revue, the place glamour, intrigue and simmering sexiness are at all times high of the invoice.
Any respectable cabaret has to have spectacle, wit, appeal, fabulous music and, in fact, good singing, and this manufacturing hits most of these targets, even when the baffling plot stays stubbornly opaque. Francesco Micheli, making his directorial debut at Glyndebourne, casts Alcina the sorceress as a sequined femme fatale, draped in feather boas and furs, attended by a troupe of leggy showgirls. On Handel’s fantasy island she turns her lovers into stable stone or wild animals. Right here on the Teatro Lirico, she merely condemns them to take a seat and watch the present.
Some will discover this all too superficial, however there’s no denying it’s one hell of a present. The good set-piece arias that make this opera a supreme instance of the baroque are given full glitzy remedy from an unique peacock-tail stage, full with walk-down steps. It’s enjoyable, sassy and ever so barely bonkers, whereas solely simply managing to keep up the psychological subtleties of Handel’s characterisation, particularly the sluggish disintegration of Alcina, as her magical powers slip slowly from her grasp.
Making a formidable Glyndebourne debut as Alcina is the Canadian soprano Jane Archibald, who glistens and gleams by the huge emotional vary of the function, notably excellent in her lament Ah! mio cor. One other debut – lengthy overdue – is made by the British soprano Soraya Mafi, whose dazzlingly vivid and agile coloratura excited audiences throughout Britain for a number of seasons earlier than Covid. She steals the present as Alcina’s scheming sister Morgana: flirtatious, vindictive and deliciously flighty. Her entrance in a mermaid swimsuit is outrageous; her vivacious account of the aria Tornami a vagheggiar merely a showstopper.
She falls for “Ricciardo”, really Bradamante disguised as her brother, who arrives decided to rescue her associate, Ruggiero, who has come below showgirl Alcina’s spell. Scottish mezzo Beth Taylor, as Bradamante, is one other Glyndebourne debutante and impresses along with her incisive approach, whereas the pleasant soprano Rowan Pierce has nice enjoyable with the function of the little boy Oberto.
The American mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey sings Ruggiero, the central function Handel assigned to the castrato Carestini, a sexual ambiguity that's carried by into Micheli’s interpretation, including an extra twist to the already headspinning plot. She sings with immense fashion, even when the road is usually too low for her vary. Her farewell to the island, Verdi prati, was heart-rending.
The outlandish costumes are by Alessio Rosati. Edoardi Sanchi’s design switches neatly from stage to dressing room to backstage, fantastically lit by Bruno Poet. Mike Ashcroft provides some really fulfilling choreography, a lot enlivened by the spirited enjoying of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, below the assured course of Jonathan Cohen. Go. You’ll be none the wiser concerning the plot, however that’s showbusiness.
Opera is merciless to its heroines. Consider Carmen, Lulu, Gilda, Tosca and Butterfly. Used and abused, they meet violent ends. However the world has modified since these characters have been created. Aiming to start out redressing the stability is a brand new experimental piece, The Blue Lady, the results of a collaboration between the composer Laura Bowler, librettist Laura Lomas, director Katie Mitchell, conductor Jamie Man, designer Lizzie Clachan and video editor Grant Gee.
It offers unflinchingly with the ruinous psychological aftermath of rape in a part-performance, part-film format. 4 singers (Elaine Mitchener, Lucy Schaufer, Gweneth Ann Rand and Rosie Middleton) sit on a naked stage, accompanied by 4 cellists (Louise McMonagle, Su-a Lee, Tamaki Sugimoto and Clare O’Connell). Above them runs a fantastically shot movie, through which actor Eve Ponsonby personifies all ladies who search obsessively for the individual they as soon as have been earlier than they have been raped.
Bowler’s rating is usually spare and bleak, as you would possibly anticipate, but in addition surprisingly wealthy in texture, drawing some startling sonic results when combining 4 voices, 4 cellos, percussion and electronics. Lomas’s libretto is powerfully poetic, with the singers propelling her phrases out into the auditorium like shards of glass in an hour of calmly contained rage.
We are able to argue whether or not this completely static piece is admittedly an opera, however that hardly issues. It’s an announcement, a inserting on document, an exploration of human expertise that's too typically averted as a result of it’s too painful to ponder. Music has the facility to take us out of this world, however The Blue Lady exhibits it could possibly additionally problem us to stare onerous at its actuality – and never look away.
Star scores (out of 5)
Alcina ★★★★
The Blue Lady ★★★
Alcina is at Glyndebourne, East Sussex, till 24 August
The Blue Lady, a co-production between the Royal Opera Home and Britten Pears Arts, can be carried out at Snape Maltings, Suffolk, on 8 & 9 September
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