There’s no escaping it. This production of Arne’s masterful Artaxerxes is a triumph on many fronts. First, it is a triumph for the good faith and intelligence of a number of people that it has been staged at all. It has long been known amongst scholars and some conductors that Arne’s Artaxerxes is a neglected masterpiece, even though some of it is missing. Staged at Covent Garden for the first time in 1762 it held the stage till the 1830s, even 40s according to some, with its stellar number “The Soldier tir’d” being a vocal warhorse for a run of brilliant sopranos. The fate of score has not been happy. Arne published the full score in three volumes omitting the recitatives and final chorus. The performing parts, that contained all the music not printed, were destroyed in a fire at Covent Garden in 1808. Restorers of this work at least have had some consolation as the complete text of the libretto has been preserved, so the opera remains very much more than a torso.
      Because the work was still in repertoire copies of some of the recitatives survived elsewhere but in increasingly bowdlerized versions, the most famous of which were in a shortened version of the opera by the Covent Garden director Sir Henry Bishop in 1813. Scholars have wrestled with how much of Bishop’s recitatives are in fact more Arne than Bishop, but divisions still exist. One solution, which the present conductor Ian Page has adopted, is to compose new recitatives aiming to match Arne’s 1760’s style. Ian Page also commissioned the composer Duncan Druce to compose a new finale, which works magnificently, cleverly combining a wonderfully Handelian end with a good deal of later detail, exactly matching Arne’s opera.
      It’s one thing to resurrect a museum piece. It’s another to bring back to life a wonderful piece of theatre. It is the latter that the current production has achieved. Despite some exaggerated claims Arne’s masterpiece has not slipped completely out of sight. In recent decades stage- and BBC-producers have had it performed, and there is an excellent CD of it on Hyperion. Now Covent Garden has woken to its heritage and staged the work again after a sleep of nearly two hundred years. There’s nothing like a top-class professional production for demonstrating just how good an opera really is in its proper environment. And for Arne’s Artaxerxes good is not the word. I must reach for some more superlatives!
      This is the second triumph. Conductor Ian Page, producer Martin Duncan, designer Johan Engels, choreographer Michael Popper, and lighting designer Nicholas Michaletos have combined to make a revival worthy of the original. The production is stylized with, as would have been the case in 1762; the characters are dressed in contemporary costumes. This emphasizes the fact that no one in the 18th century regarded stories about ancient Persians as archaeology or history. Old stories were dragooned to tell contemporary tales, and in the case of the original librettist, Pietro Metastasio, to point suitable morals for those in high places with responsible positions. In the end right must prevail. And it does. For a while it seemed strange that the men dressed like the women, which is an anachronistic stylization. Indeed, in Act 1, I thought this prevented some characters from moving easily on the stage. By the end of Act 2 this problem seemed to have evaporated not least because the characters moved around in front of the orchestra, and also because Andrew Staples as Artabanes showed that such costumes were no hindrance to powerful acting. The omnipresence of the murdered Xerxes was magnificently suggested by an elaborate body-clinging throne at the back of the centre stage, to which in the end Artaxerxes ascends and is encased. What this emphasized is that the plot is a sort of modern power-struggle coupled with a detective story. Who killed Xerxes? The killer’s identity is only revealed at the end, though known to the audience from the beginning, when the culprit thinks his innocent son is going to die from one of his culpable schemes. Right will out.
      Apart from the production, the singers were uniformly outstanding and well cast. Arne’s opera, like many of the day, requires a disproportionately high number of high voices. Two castrati, two sopranos, two tenors. But one soprano and one tenor are pitched lower varying the sound but presenting difficulties in casting. The vocal characteristics were beautifully differentiated between the characters and portrayed by the various artists. Christopher Ainslie’s febrile Artaxerxes deftly suggested the ruler’s fragility. Rebecca Bottone’s Semira was masterful in her poise and vocal control. Some of her poisonous declamation scorched off the page. The villain of the piece, Artabanes the murderer, was grippingly portrayed by Andrew Staples, whose acting and singing were equally matched and excellent.
      Injustice in many 18th century operas focuses on pairs of lovers. In the end Artaxerxes secures his Semira, but our principal attention is drawn to the couple, high-mninded Mandane and the ill-fated Arbaces. Between these two there were so many outstanding moments it is hard to enumerate them. Caitlin Hulcup was moving as the imprisoned Arbaces in the gloriously scored aria at the beginning of Act: “Why is Death for ever late”. Tossed between supporters she stretched the beautiful phrases to their emotional limit. Together Caitlin Hulcup and Elizabeth Watts were superb in the opening duettino “Fair Aurora, pr’ythee stay”. All seems set for happiness but it is not to be, at least not for a while. Yet their intertwining lines supported by evocative horn calls suggests all might be well: their matched voices being a tribute to careful and sensitive casting. Finally though the most commanding role is Mandane, and over the years this part has been sung by a series of great sopranos. First was Arne’s mistress Charlotte Brent, then the redoubtable Mrs Bracegirdle. In the 1960s Joan Sutherland recorded Mandane’s final aria “A solder tir’d”. Elizabeth Watts proved a more than worthy successor to this great heritage. Each of her arias, stratospheric or simple, were beautifully phrased and sung. Watts acts with her voice, even more than her body. Her nuanced tone and changes of colour bring a special life to her characterization. So when her final tour-de-force appeared in the aria “The soldier tir’d” the audience responded with prolonged applause. Standing in the middle of the stage in a kind of re-enforced cage of a costume she proclaimed with perfect dexterity her philosophy of peace “The Soldier tir’d of War’s Alarms, / Forswears the clang of hostile Arms, / And scores the Spear and Shield”. The manner of the aria is militaristic being in D and on the reprise, and to the words, “But if the brazen Trumpet sound, / He burns with Conquest to be crown’d / And dares again the field”, she is joined by a solo trumpet, this time on stage played by Paul Sharp. So sure was Watts’s intonation and declamation, so authoritative her interpretation that even the hardest critic could not fail to be moved. Watts’s gave a spectacular performance in every respect.
      Spectacular too was the orchestra and the conductor Ian Page. His was the idea of the Arne revival, and his the persistence in getting it performed at Covent Garden. But it is one thing to enthuse, another to execute. He coaxed from the period instrument orchestra of Classical Opera all the multiple colours Arne demands. Arne showed himself a highly imaginative orchestrator in this opera using horns, bassoons, pizzicato and muted strings and, unusually, clarinets in a particularly telling way. One advantage of the Linbury studio was that so much of this detail could be heard, not least because some of the instrumental duos stood on the stage instead playing in the pit. As the performance progressed the gripping drama took hold, and Page responded to the singers’ renewed passions with sensitivity. Despite Page being at the helm, this was a team effort.
      With Handel dead in 1759, Arne renewed his attempts first made in the 1730s to establish opera in English, composed by English composers for English audiences. In the 1760s he not only composed this great opera seria in English but two glorious comic operas: Love in a Village and Thomas and Sally. I hope next year for Arne’s 300th anniversary the Royal Opera House will re-engage the Classical Opera Company to stage these as a double-bill. In the meantime all we can do is rejoice that many minds got together to revive Artaxerxes in so rich and awe-inspiring a way. All that has to be asked is how many other English operas are waiting for a management and performers willing to run the gauntlet of the die-hard criticism that there was no good English music, let alone English operas, between Purcell and Elgar.
      But let me not end on a negative note. Tickets are hard to come by for this award-worthy performance of Arne’s Artaxerxes. If you haven’t got one, beg, steal or do whatever has to be done to get one. It will be a night to remember.
Roderick Swanston