Torments of love
Michael Tanner
Orlando Royal Opera House La Bohème Coliseum
Handel’s Orlando, apparently one of his greatest operas, is much more impressive in the first revival of Francisco Negrin’s production at the Royal Opera than it was at its first outing in 2003. Though my visual memory is most unreliable, I remember it as revolving dizzyingly, with characters whipping through door after door as the tripartite set sped round. There seemed then, too, to be far too much business going on during the da capo arias, as if Negrin didn’t trust Handel to command the audience’s attention unless they had something adventitious to watch. This time round the revolving set struck me as having slowed down somewhat, and as more appropriate to the action which developed on it, the characters passing from a state of pastoral peace to one of warfare or emotional turmoil. And where before it was unclear how ironically they were being viewed, here they seemed straightforwardly anguished by the torments of love, which are watched with a pained philosophical eye by the so-called magician Zoroastre, though actually he is the rational agent, a kind of benevolent Don Alfonso.
The musical side of things has improved vastly, too. I expressed the hope last time I reviewed it that the previous conductor would be replaced by the energising Sir Charles Mackerras, and gratifyingly that is what has happened. And the title role is now performed with every kind of virtuosity by Bejun Mehta, promoted from the less important role of Medoro. Mehta looks striking, straight out of Ariosto, and acts with passionate intensity; but what is flabbergasting is the vocal portrayal of Orlando’s gradual unhinging in the servitude of love. He produces the wildest but most precise coloratura in the staggering Act II aria, and then in Act III, as he sinks in exhausted delusion, his singing crumbles while the accompaniment grinds to a halt, in the most astonishing passage I know in Handel’s operas. The gradual recovery that follows, masterminded by Zoroastre, is no less remarkable, and makes this character one of the very few in an opera of this composer who seems to lead an independent existence, of which we witness only a segment. The others are more or less stock creations, characterised by those all-purpose arias which show that they are determined, grieving, or overflowing with high spirits, but what Handel nearly always provides is a depiction of a state of mind, and not of who is having it.
In Orlando there are quite a few routine numbers, in fact Act I consists of little else, and is a sore test of endurance. And that despite the all-round distinction of the cast, the best array I have encountered on stage. For the presiding wisdom of Zoroastre there is Kyle Ketelsen, who produces some of the most convincing low notes to have been heard for years in diesen heil’gen Hallen. The sympathetic shepherdess Dorinda is enchantingly embodied in Camilla Tilling, while Angelica, beloved of both Orlando and an African prince Medoro, is Rosemary Joshua, marvellously supple and rich. Anna Bonitatibus is Medoro, also excellent: that means that almost all the music is sung by high voices, which may add to the waves of tedium that periodically sweep over one. I would happily settle for highlights from this piece, and the audi ence’s relentless applauding, though now common, seemed designed as much to keep themselves awake as to express appreciation. Jonathan Keates, in his programme article, claims that ‘far from being an obtrusive interruption in the opera’s desirably seamless unfolding, [applause] offered a vital means of clinching the bond formed by the singers with their audience’, as ingenious a piece of special pleading as I’ve come across for a long time, though it fails to cope with the question of why it seems no intrusion in a Handel opera and is intolerable in Mozart’s greatest operas.
Go to the Coliseum, restored very recently to its Edwardian glory at a cost of £41 million, and what do you see as soon as you push your way through the doors? A Sony PlayStation, the idea of which is presumably to lure in those who would normally frequent amusement arcades, so that having discharged some aggression they stroll over to the ticket office and buy tickets for Agrippina, which leads to a lifelong passion for opera. Or they might chance on La Bohème, whose latest revival was dedicated, in a moving speech by Nicholas Hytner, to its original director Steven Pimlott. They might well wonder what to make of it, a huge semi-monumental set which is equally inappropriate to each setting, but certainly fails to suggest the tiny rooms in which those students would have lived. Without being obviously inadequate, this Bohème just failed to jerk those tears which it almost always effortlessly calls forth. Mary Plazas is a lovely artist, but her recent performances haven’t given the indications I would have hoped for that she is realising her potential, and her voice hasn’t the lustre for Puccini. Peter Auty’s Rodolfo is vocally much closer to what’s needed, but the second pair won’t do. Mark Stone goes on hamming it up as if he were still at the Albert Hall, and Giselle Allen’s Musetta suggests a failure of taste in the performer rather than, where it should be, in the character. The conducting of Xian Zhang is the strongest point of this revival.
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