Così fan tutte, Opera Holland Park, OHP, June 2012

This was a second hit for Opera Holland Park this season — a great team performance bringing Così fan tutte fully to life. Fine eighteenth century designs by Alex Eales, plus a cheerful sunny set in the centre of the stage, were accompanied by the chorus as an on-stage audience, and bright lighting design by Colin Grenfell that showed surprising changes at the end.

All images OHP/ Fritz Curzon

This production by Harry Fehr gets to grips with the wittiness of Mozart’s opera by being perfectly serious, but with a lightness of touch. The performers interacted perfectly with one another, the singing was a delight, and there was plenty of drama, from Dorabella baring her cleavage in lamentation during the early quintet in Act I, to Fiordiligi rolling on the floor in emotional agony after her Per pieta in Act II.

Dorabella and Fiordiligi

This opera runs a fair gamut of emotions, from the lovely trio Soave sia il vento, wishing gentle winds for the young men who have been unexpectedly called away for military duty, to those moments of musical discord that are left unresolved. Elizabeth Llewellyn was terrific as Fiordiligi, first coming into her own in Act I when she orders the lovers, disguised as Turks, out of the house, after which the others calm her down, fanning her with napkins, and she launches into Come scoglio immoto resta. Defiantly confirming that nothing can change her devotion, she showed real power, particularly on the top notes. Julia Riley as Dorabella sang beautifully and her acting was just as convincing in this female role as I have seen her in travesti roles. Joana Seara as the maid Despina was a delight, immediately brightening things up on stage with her charmingly resentful Che vita maladetta (What a cursed life). Her subsequent aria casting aspersions on the faithfulness of men and soldiers was very well done, and in her Una donna a quindici anni at the start of Act II, when she says that a fifteen year old girl should know the wiles of love, she accompanied her words with suitably coquettish gestures.

Guglielmo and Dorabella

Nicholas Garrett, who sang Don Giovanni at Holland Park two years ago, was a fine Don Alfonso, relishing the game he plays with the two young men, and his scheming with Despina. Dawid Kimberg sang well as Guglielmo, and his duet with Julia Riley as Dorabella in Act II was terrific. Andrew Staples as Ferrando delivered a beautiful Un’aura amorosa in Act I, and became suitably upset in Act II as he built up the emotion during In qual fiero contrasto, lamenting the turmoil in his own thoughts.

Thomas Kemp, conducting the City of London Sinfonia, gave fine support to the singers, letting the music breathe, and allowing Harry Fehr’s production to work its magic.

Performances continue until July 7 — click here for details, and note that evening performances start at 7:15.

Lucia di Lammermoor, Opera Holland Park, OHP, June 2012

The new Holland Park season opened on a blustery cool evening, just right for the Scottish setting of Donizetti’s Lucia. Its plot, based on a novel by Walter Scott, is absolutely up to the minute in view of the government’s recent proclamation making forced marriage illegal, and costumes were appropriately modern.

The mad scene, Enrico behind, all images OHP/ Alex Brenner

These omens turned out well, and the straightforward production by Olivia Fuchs allowed our concentration to dwell on the main characters and their interactions. Jamie Vartan’s designs, which included excellent costumes, helped keep the focus on the principals by having frames of wire mesh somewhat obscuring the chorus most of the time, and the movement, directed by Mandy Demetriou, was very well done, as was the placing of the various performers.

Edgardo

The singing was terrific. Russian soprano Elvira Fatykhova sang Lucia with great sensitivity and lovely top notes, giving us a heroine who should live and be happy rather than be destroyed by the machinations of her own brother Enrico, aided and abetted by the wretched Normanno. David Stephenson sang a fine Enrico, and his acting was superb. Here was a rather nasty fellow, with a frisson of physical attraction for his sister, gripping her upper arms in Act I and trying to make her feel guilty. And for why? Because he wants to compel her into an expedient marriage to restore the family fortunes, while she loves Edgardo, whom he hates. Aldo di Toro sang grippingly as Edgardo, portraying an attractive sympathetic man, and the duet between him and Enrico at the start of Act III was superbly done.

Irrational exuberance from the groom, before Lucia knifes him

Good stage presence from Keel Watson as the chaplain Raimondo, whose condemnation of Normanno towards the end of Act III was powerfully sung, and Nicholas Ransley made a fine Normanno, particularly in his interactions with Enrico in Act I.

This was a strong team performance of Lucia, held together with great energy by Stuart Stratford conducting the City of London Sinfonia. Indeed the players needed energy to keep out the cold, and I counted five woolly hats in the orchestra pit!

Another triumph for Holland Park, so here’s hoping the season will continue as well as it has started.

Performances of Lucia continue until June 30 — click here for details.

Fidelio, Holland Park Opera, OHP, July 2010

Beethoven’s only opera is a plea for justice, an idealistic cri de coeur from a composer who originally wanted to dedicate his third symphony to his hero Napoleon, only to be vastly disappointed when the general declared himself emperor. In this story, Florestan has been secretly imprisoned for two years by Don Pizarro, simply because he had exposed him as a rascal. When Pizarro hears that the Minister of Justice will arrive the next day he decides to murder Florestan and bury him before the visit. That all goes vastly wrong owing to the intervention of Florestan’s wife Leonore, who has been working at the prison under the assumed name of Fidelio.

Florestan and Leonore, photo by Fritz Curzon

Yvonne Howard as Leonore/Fidelio started gently and built up power as the evening progressed, performing well in her role as a man. But what really brought fire to the evening was Tom Randle as Florestan. As soon as he opened his mouth to sing in Act II, we had some real emotion and his voice was a powerful and welcome addition to what had gone before in Act I. At the start of the opera, Nicky Spence had given a rather vicious portrayal of an immensely frustrated young prison warder, Jaquino, desperately wanting Sarah Redgwick as Marzelline, the daughter of Rocco the jailer. She, in love with Fidelio, sang well, more strongly in my view than Stephen Richardson as Rocco, who was engagingly human, but a little underpowered. Phillip Joll sang strongly as the corrupt prison governor Don Pizarro, but portrayed a rather insipid character, not helped by the production where the movements of the guards on his first entrance looked very contrived. The prisoners chorus in Act I was the high point of that Act — powerfully sung.

The prisoners, photo by Fritz Curzon

However, the production’s main weakness was in Act II. When Njabulo Madlala entered as the Minister, foreshadowed by two goons with shades, he had entirely the wrong body language for such a powerful man, behaving more like a police community support officer new to the beat. But what really made this 2003 production by Olivia Fuchs so unsatisfactory was the inconsistency of having microphones and photographers accompanying the Minister, showing an open society, whereas Pizarro can apparently imprison someone for merely personal reasons. Was there a coup? I think the story has been perverted, and if the essay in the programme that mentions Guantanamo Bay reflects the producer’s intentions then this is not the opera it’s supposed to be. Are Pizarro’s prisoners supposed to be terrorists? I think the original idea has been lost in this rather incoherent staging, where the Minister pretended to glug down red wine straight from the bottle, and the nasty prison warder who had beaten everyone with his stick handed round loaves of bread. At the end the audience booed Don Pizarro in true pantomime style.

Fortunately the City of London Sinfonia played well under Peter Robinson, giving Beethoven’s music the serious tone it deserves.

Don Giovanni, Holland Park Opera, July 2010

This production by Stephen Barlow gives a clear and convincing take on the story, with pre-First World War costumes by Yannis Thavonis rather than elaborate wigs and clothing from the eighteenth century. Nicholas Garrett sang a powerfully aggressive and hyperactive Don of short stature — looking rather like Nicholas Sarkozy — and Matthew Hargreaves was an engaging and sympathetic Leporello. Money in the form of large bank notes exchanged hands between them several times, and it was as if Zerlina and Masetto were watching from the wings, as they purloined the remaining money from the Don’s corpse at the end.

Nicholas Garrett as the Don with Laura Mitchell as Donna Elvira

Zerlina was a prim and bespectacled girl, very well sung by Claire Wild, whom the Don turned into a sexy charmer when he removed her glasses and let down her hair — a clever touch. Her fiancé Masetto was played by Robert Winslade Anderson as angry but ineptly assertive, and his swift sharp beating by the Don was horribly convincing. Laura Mitchell was a strikingly beautiful Donna Elvira with a lovely voice, only spoiled by straining to fill the auditorium. Her acting was superb, and she was utterly convincing in her desire for the ruthless Don. Ana James sang well as Donna Anna, with Thomas Walker looking suitably ineffective as her fiancé Don Ottavio, and Simon Wilding came over very strongly as her father the Commendatore, singing an excellent bass.

Ana James as Donna Anna

The ego-centricity of the Don in this production is well indicated by nearly twenty portraits of him, hanging on the wall and propped up on the floor — all exactly the same — and it’s through one of these that the Commendatore arrives to dine with him. There is no statue of this dead potentate, but a large coffin is brought on and the Don and Leporello see him inside it while a vision appears in a mirror over the fireplace. Stephen Barlow, who created the production — not to be confused with his namesake the opera conductor — is clearly a man to watch, and I had already been delighted by his direction of the Tosca revival in 2009 at Covent Garden. This is an excellent staging in which to understand Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and Robert Dean did a very fine job conducting the City of London Sinfonia.