SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

SEEN AND HEARD UK OPERA  REVIEW
 

Handel, Tamerlano: Soloists, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conductor: Ivor Bolton, The Royal Opera, London 15.3.2010. (GDn)

Production Picture © Catherine Ashmore
 

‘Preventative surgery’ left a number of seats at this evening’s Tamerlano unfilled, demand for the withdrawn Domingo significantly exceeding demand for Handel. Ironically, I can’t imagine the star tenor adding much to what we heard; baroque music is hardly his speciality. Those who cancelled on his account missed a satisfying, if uneven show, with a strong visual conception, a coherent directorial approach and a cast of diverse but complimentary vocal talent.

As anyone who has seen the publicity will know, the sets for this production are spectacular. Director Graham Vick and designer Richard Hudson have illustrated the changing fortunes of the characters through circles of fate. So everything in the staging is based on arcs, circles and globes. A giant white sphere surmounted by a colossal human foot resides at the centre of the stage throughout the performance and in the memorable opening tableau, Bajazet, the recently defeated emperor of the Turks lies beneath it, crushed by both the world and will of the gods. The costumes combine Ottoman garb with the stately dress of 18^th century London, an attempt, perhaps, to reference the orientalism of Handel’s day without becoming implicated in it. And then there is the life-sized blue elephant, a triumph of stage furniture in itself.

Musically, the performance took a very long time to get up to speed, and I’m sorry to say that the first half act or so was a bit of a car crash. The strings were out of tune in the overture. The orchestra’s transitions between the first few numbers were hesitant. One of the singers came on to the stage and promptly forgot their (all right, her) first line. Another singer gave an opening aria that was of approximate intonation at best...after the first 20 minutes it felt like we were going to be in for a very long night.

Miraculously, the second and third acts were almost completely free from any of these problems. What could have happened? A half time locker room pep talk from conductor Ivor Bolton in the first interval perhaps? One problem in the first act was the ‘actions’ – I mean in the Macarena/YMCA sense – that accompanied many of the arias. These were distracting and often quite comical, especially when performed collectively, but they had a serious effect on the ensemble. Thankfully, the idea didn’t make it into the second or third acts.

When the cast finally achieved their form, they revealed themselves to be a diversely talented vocal group. Until the last half act or so, the texture is almost always restricted to a single singing voice, so the variety of timbres and vocal presentations made for an endlessly (it is a long opera) interesting line-up of recitatives and arias.

The two trouser roles were taken by Christianne Stotijn and Sara Mingardo. Between them they deserve most of the plaudits (a situation I suspect would have been unchanged by the presence of Domingo). Stotijn has a robust and characterful voice that seems appropriate to almost any repertoire. The last time I heard her sing was in Das Lied von der Erde, and she sings Handel almost exactly as she sings Mahler, and with equal success. My only gripe is that she is just too nice to play the tyrannical dictator that the title role requires. She can do angry all right, but she struggles with sadism. Sara Mingardo is another remarkable talent. What a rich, fruity voice! At times she sounded quite manly, and acted the noble, if slighted Greek prince Andronico with aplomb. Had it been up to me, though, I’d have switched Stotijn and Mingrado; the results would have been dramatically more plausible, I suspect, on both counts.

Kurt Streit had originally been booked to share the role of Bajazet with Domingo, but the latter’s absence handed him the whole run. It is a curious substitution, as I can hardly think of any tenor who sounds less like Domingo than he does. His vocal style (at least here) is declamatory, but his tone is light. His suicide scene in the last act is the culmination of the piece, and his dramatic and musical sensitivity here really allowed him to tie up the tragic dimension of the plot.

Christine Schäfer gave a serviceable performance, but nothing even close to her finest work in this house. Her rich, silky tone was in place in the middle and lower registers, but she sang consistently flat at the top. All was close to forgiven, however, in her closing aria of the second act. Tuning problems remained, but the raw emotion was compelling.

Strangely, the two singers at the bottom of the cast sheet, Renata Pokupić and Vito Priante, came close to stealing the show, such was the talent they brought to the small roles of Irene and Leone. Pokupić had the privilege of making her entrance on the aforementioned life-sized elephant, while Priante followed her around (on foot) as her courtier. Irene is the subject of a flimsy plot device about disguising herself as her maid in order to...well, it’s not important, it’s all quite generic. It was just a shame we heard so little from her.

All in all, a visually spectacular if musically mixed presentation of one of Handel’s more exotic Eastern confections. It was programmed, no doubt, as a showcase or lure for Domingo, but the fates intervened on the production in much the same way that they do to the characters. And it was a real shame about the music in the first half hour. The BBC recorded this performance for broadcast on Radio 3 in July. When the time comes, you might be tempted to switch over to Classic FM in during the first act, but it’s worth sticking with for some markedly improved performances later on.

Gavin Dixon