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Lyrics
Minato
Conductor
Harry Bicket
Director
Michael
Walling
Design
David
Fielding
Lighting
Paul Pyant
Translation
Nicholas
Hytner
Xerxes
Sarah
Connolly
Arsamenes
Robin Blaze
Amastris
Anna
Burford
Romilda
Rebecca
Evans
Ariodates
Mark
Richardson
Atalanta
Mary Nelson
Elviro
Iain
Paterson
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London
Coliseum
English
National Opera
7
- 30 November 2002 |
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This was the
fifth revival of Nicholas Hytner's brilliantly
imaginative production of Handel's 1738
comic masterpiece Serse,
or Xerxes
as the Anglophile ENO calls it. It's
hard to imagine there are enough people
who have not seen it since its first
outing in 1985 to justify a revival
on economic grounds, though if artistic
merit were the criterion it could run
and run. In fact the opening night was
packed, no doubt, like me, with a number
of repeaters.
The excellence
of this production lies in its central
conceit. It is set in an imaginary 18th
century pleasure garden: in fact a thinly
disguised version of Vauxhall since
Roubiliac's statue of Handel dressed
informally features on several occasions.
The pleasure gardens suggest that the
main action is a typical love-story
of the period, though the automaton-like
chorus whose synchronized responses
are nearly always in slow motion suggest
that they who are in life 'real' are
in the opera 'unreal' spectators of
the central drama. This idea not only
offers Hytner any number of opportunities
for presenting double-takes where manners
and art overlap and reality and unreality
swap places. A telling of example of
the former is Amastris's second-act
aria Now 'tis plain
that the traitor defiles me,
where her mounting anger leads to more
and more outbursts of coloratura, and
with each occurrence the white-painted
chorus of tea-drinkers and flunkeys
show their incapacity to cope with the
intrusion of passionate reality by raising
their tea-cups a fraction more, leaving
their enclosure in a pointed manner
and eventually allowing the waiters
to 'escort' the decorum-breaker to be
'escorted' from the restaurant.
In the
opera 'reality' is Xerxes's selfish
pursuit of Romilda, but this is a play
watched by the real world, namely the
chorus which here observes as though
it were less real than the stage-play
world. But behind the stage-play conventional
love-quadrangle there is a grimmer reality
of absolutism using its power to steal
whatever it wants, and of the paranoia
that led Xerxes to build a bridge over
the Hellespont between the western part
of his empire and the obstinate Greeks
whom by this means he wished vanquish.
The destruction of the bridge by a storm
might in Handel's day have been staged
by complex machinery, but like the ending
of Alcina,
imagination would have been stretched
almost too far to make such a scene
realistic. Hytner's superb solution
is to have a model bridge built as though
an exhibit in a museum, and then have
it destroyed in a symbolically comic-tragic,
real-unreal moment by Xerxes' brother's
aide Elviro when drunk and in despair
of the gradually worsening situation
around him.
Handel's
late operatic style is simpler than
his earlier, and abounds in catchy numbers,
of which the most famous is the famous
Largo (in
fact a Larghetto)
sung by Xerxes right at the beginning
of the opera (Under
thy shade). This famous slow
minuet-aria has been sung so often out
of context by singers gushing with emotion
that it is hard to remember that all
it is a gentle eulogy to a tree under
which Xerxes likes to nap while remembering
his ancestors.
The original
performances in 1985 were conducted
by Sir Charles Mackerras and his speeds
though crisp had a lilt and pacing that
allowed plenty of room for the singers
to articulate their words. For this
revival the conductor is Harry Bicket
whose sense of theatre is less apparent
than the incomparable Sir Charles's
and who sometimes drives the music a
little too hard and relies too often
on conventionalized phrasing and articulation.
While on the night I saw the opera,
this made the first act somewhat routine,
by the second act things greatly improved
and strong sense of pace and different
characterization became apparent led
increasingly by the principally who
audibly and visibly grew into their
roles.
All the
main cast is excellent. Robin Blaze
is a superb Arsamenes, though his portrayal
is less arch than Christopher Robson's
original. He wins our sympathy but does
not match Robson's magnificent contempt.
Iain Paterson's Elviro is a nicely judged
blend of Leporello and Figaro, at times
witty, at time exasperated but always
beautifully sung. The thwarted Amastris
is feistily sung by Anna Burford with
righteous anger bursting forth with
great panache. Of the principals the
only slightly weak member was Rebecca
Evans as Romilda, whose pitch sometimes
slipped and whose languid arias sometimes
became more languid in their course.
It was less easy to imagine why Xerxes
fell for her through her singing than
it had been when the divine Valeria
Masterson created the role.
Xerxes
is a difficult role. In history he is
known as a tyrant and cruel conqueror,
a forerunner of Saddam. But in the opera
he moves from calm ruler to lecherous
lover to unscrupulous rival and in the
end has to find a way of portraying
amorous disappointment and magnanimous
righter of wrongs. This is a tall order
and for the most part it was realized
convincingly by Sarah Connolly. Her
second act pathos however was much more
compelling than her first act lechery
and petulance. Somehow she felt more
at home in real emotions than the rather
archly contrived series she is required
to portray in the first act, though
her gorgeously forthright interpretation
of I will declare
my passion (surely one of the
catchy numbers in the whole opera) was
superb.
This
revival has kept all the freshness that
might have disappeared seventeen years
after this production was first staged.
It's a terrific theatrical experience
and remains a landmark in modern Handel
productions. The singers do it proud.
Roderick
Swanston |
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