MUSIC

Iford (Tue 2 Aug)

Crammed with juicy arias, dramatically a gripping page-turner of a thriller driven by vicious power struggles and the entanglements of love, why is Handel’s ‘Rodelinda’ not core repertoire for every opera company in the land?  It’s a piece firing on all cylinders. And with Christian Curnyn and his Early Opera Company back at Iford after last year’s absence, there was enough electricity going spare for the National Grid to come a-knocking. Spurred on by Curnyn’s customary poise, energy and verve, the band has never sounded better – and with a persuasive cast, musically the piece was straight out of the top drawer from first note to last. Martin Constantine’s battle-ship-grey-dominated production put a dampener on the flames, however, by trying too hard. It all looked a bit 1970s East German ‘Regietheater’, what with masked heavies (punching paper screens) sporting overcoats that might have run the gauntlet of a colony of severely incontinent seagulls. And while the anonymity of Martin Friend’s paper-obsessed design provided a sharp counterpoint to the unfolding turmoils, the staging often distracted – the final gesture of the boy-prince raining on the parade of the finale’s rejoicing by brandishing a knife too clunky for words. The implication was clear, but didn’t need to be underlined in marker pen. Especially when some of the singers were so adept as actors. Gillian Ramm’s Rodelinda could encapsulate a world in a glance – you certainly wouldn’t want to cross her in a dark alley – and vocally she was a natural Handelian to her fingertips, effortlessly floating the pathos of the supposedly-bereaved Queen, and ravishing in the duet which reunited her with James Laing’s affecting Bertarido. Nathan Vale’s Grimoaldo was no mere black-and-white baddie and Doreen Curran’s Eduige exuded richly upholstered colours. Production excesses aside, vintage Iford! (Paul Riley).

Copyright Paul Riley 2011