Lovers do the time warp... but are saved by the music
IN THESE days of time-warping opera productions it may be unwise to trust the programme synopsis. Glyndebourne’s — for this season-opening first professional UK staging of Donizetti’s melodious melodrama — blithely asserts: ‘Armenia, AD 257-9.’ I wish.
The story concerns a Christian martyrs’ love triangle in which old Roman gods and the outlawed new faith lead to family feuds and executions in the arena during the Roman occupation of Armenia.
Director Mariame Clement, however, appears to set this modern dress production in Mussolini’s Italy or Franco’s Spain, with strutting storm troopers and projections of vast military motorcades. It makes no dramatic sense at all and, coupled with a bleak set consisting of sliding giant grey slabs, it looks as boring and incongruous as it feels.
Thank the gods, then, for some thrilling singing and terrific playing from the London Philharmonic Orchestra under charismatic conductor Enrique Mazzola (including a Priests’ chorus that Verdi was to rip off for his Triumphal chorus in Aida).
Donizetti’s glorious score, now rarely heard, has long been hailed as a bel canto masterpiece. It was famously revived at La Scala in 1960 with Callas and Corelli and, though there is no singing of that quality here, Glyndebourne’s young cast are always pleasing on the ear.
The American tenor Michael Fabiano fearlessly delivers his stratospheric top notes as the Armenian Christian convert of the title while Puerto Rican soprano Ana Maria Martinez brings Callaslike intensity to Paolina, the troubled but loyal wife who finally opts to join him in martyrdom.
Fine singing, too, from Bolshoi baritone Igor Golovatenko as the Roman Proconsul, Severo.
The three stars of this review go to them, the LPO and to Glyndebourne for unearthing this neglected musical treat. Ms Clement can go to the arena.
ThE six-opera Glyndebourne season runs until August 30.