La Cenerentola

Composer: Rossini Director: Oliver Platt Conductor: Dane Lam Opera Holland Park, London W8 (0300-999 1000) Until 30 July Running time: 3hrs (including interval)

Like the Cinderella fairy tale on which Rossini’s opera is based, Opera Holland Park’s new La Cenerentola –a rambunctious, almost pantotinged, production directed by Oliver Platt – feels comfortingly familiar and is “lots of fun”, said Flora Willson in The Guardian. There are silly voices and silly walks. There are daft gags about height, snogging and baldness. And there’s a motley wardrobe design (by Neil Irish) which revels in “garish technicolor” for the wicked stepfather and sisters, and deploys classier monochrome for the prince – with corsets, top hats, riding jackets and powdered wigs aplenty. The choreography (by Emma Brunton) “swings between stasis and hyperactivity, the chorus often synched with comical precision to Rossini’s music”. The musicianship is “endlessly energetic”. And there are any number of delicious performances by singers apparently vying to “out-camp each other”.

Chief among them is Jonathan Veira, who gives a “sensational” buffo performance as Don Magnifico, said Clare Colvin in the Sunday Express. He is especially brilliant at suggesting the character’s underlying vulnerability when he suspects disloyalty from his spoilt daughters. “His plea that they ‘must not abandon their magnificant daddy’ has a touch of King Lear about it.” Victoria Simmonds is superb as Angelina, ranging easily from the “smoky wistfulness” of her first aria to the “dazzling coloratura” of the last. And the young Maltese tenor Nico Darmanin is a “thrilling” Prince Ramiro. Opera Holland Park should be proud of this “dazzling” production.

The young Australian conductor, Dane Lam, also deserves praise, said George Hall in The Stage. His precise, spirited conducting ensures that the company’s lively chorus give of their best, and that the City of London Sinfonia deliver Rossini’s score “with clarity and focus”. It seems Opera Holland Park is “on something of a roll this season”.