Plenty to ponder in COC’s take on dark, surreal Handel opera
Ariodante
(out of 4) By George Frideric Handel. Directed by Richard Jones. Conductor Johannes Debus. At the Four Seasons Centre, 145 Queen St. W. through Nov. 3. coc.ca or 416-363-8231
A puppet on a stripper’s pole. A wall of knives and invisible doors. A tattoo-covered priest in a “Canadian tuxedo” and combat boots with a kink for sniffing women’s knickers.
These are all scenes from the Canadian Opera Company’s (not so) opera seria production of Handel’s Ariodante, which opened over the weekend at the Four Seasons Centre.
For those who could navigate the marathon road closures that surrounded the venue on Sunday, it was a fascinating example of Handel’s four-hour long melancholy tale set in a1950s Hebrides fishing village.
Here Calvinism keeps the villagers honest, all except for one — Polinesso, charismatically played by the Armenian mezzo Varduhi Abrahamyan. And what a scoundrel he was.
As directed by Richard Jones, the opera balanced three difficult things: the music, which is some of the darkest Handel work for an opera; the singing, which demands a great deal of work from the principles; and the direction, which, in this case, was a kind of surreal theatre grounded against the literal telling of the story by Antonio Salvi.
What made it unique was Jones’s rueful leaps into symbolism, which transcended the logical with the fantastical, especially in the brilliantly done puppet vignette scenes.
He also injected opera buffa elements led by over-the-top characters: the misogynistic Polinesso and Dalinda (beautifully sung by Ambur Braid), a mousy type and the object of abuse at Polinesso’s hand.
Then there were Johannes Weisser as the king in a kilt and Owen McCausland as Ariodante’s protective brother, Lurcanio.
It all centres around Ginevra, played by Jane Archibald, and Ariodante, played by an almost unrecognizable Alice Coote.
And like any opera, someone always ends up dead. But there was a twist. I won’t give too much away, but the only real death was the final rejection by Ariodante of the rueful morality of the small town community which, to their peril, had blindly trusted Polinesso. There is a message here, especially in today’s politics.
Musically, this was a gift for the senses backed by COC’s music director Johannes Debus at his best.
The orchestra played a note-perfect score and did an admirable job of improvising the sparse baroque score.
The principles all worked very hard and, for an opening matinee, each surprisingly sat comfortably in their roles.
Of particular note were Braid and Coote, whose voices sailed wilfully through their arias. Coote’s coloratura injected a complex depth to her character that would have broken this opera very quickly in lesser hands.
The set, an effective open-concept room designed by ULTZ (a pseudonym the designer claims he received in a dream) changes little beyond the in-scene shifts of wall decor.
The costumes, which included bland mustard-coloured trousers, were decidedly ugly, save for the best-dressed Ginevra who, as the metaphorical object of desire, was the only one in a feminine dress.
There was much chatter after the opera about the merits of this symbolic production.
Opinions will surely be divided, but with a show as dramatically complex as this was, it is also exactly why it is so deliciously interesting.