Too modish but beautifully sung
Il Ritorno d’ulisse in Patria
With the previous incumbent, Wasfi Kani, ensconced in a new opera house in Surrey, the summer opera festival at the Grange estate near Winchester is now under the artistic control of counter-tenor Michael Chance.
There’s a lot of competition over a 50-mile radius in this market, and the Grange has the advantage of its magnificent architecture and idyllic landscape. But I wonder whether it was a canny idea to start with an opera in the Venetian baroque style – the
website’s claim that Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria (“Ulysses’
Return to His Homeland”) contains “memorable tunes” is pushing it a bit.
The production seems excessively modish – directed by Tim Supple and designed by Sumant Jayakrishnan, it has the high style of a funky catwalk parade. Framed by translucent screens and panels on which the surtitles are randomly projected in a variety of typefaces, the narrative unfolds as a series of irrelevant visual gimmicks.
There is no clear distinction between mortals and immortals, no coherence to the imagery and, crucially, nothing that makes the reunion of Ulysses and Penelope emotionally authentic. Portentous and pretentious, albeit very pretty in its vogueish way, it doesn’t tell Homer’s story so much as decorate it.
At least the music-making has some integrity. A band of nine string and continuo instrumentalists play with force and clarity, and the singing is by and large excellent. The mature voices of Paul Nilon and Anna Bonitatibus give eloquent and dignified expression to the torments of Ulysses and Penelope, in striking contrast to the vibrantly fresh tenor of Thomas Elwin as their son Telemachus. Veterans such as Nigel Robson and Fiona Kimm give touchingly fragile yet sturdy performances as elderly retainers, and Ronald Samm does a show-stopping comic turn as the drunken Iro. Their voices make the opera real; the staging leaves it brittle and chic. I’m not sure that the shallow hyper-sophistication of this show is what the Grange’s core audience wants.