Joanna Lumley adds wit and panache to this baroque experiment
Alcina La Nuova Musica, St John’s Smith Square, London SW1
Regular readers of my reviews may have noticed a degree of impatience in the matter of baroque opera. I apologise, but all its convoluted plots inhabited by psychologically implausible characters, all its adherence to a rigid code of hierarchy and formality, all its sheer prolixity, are deadening weights on the beauties of the music and can make a performance seem a long tedious grind rather than a delicious sensual pleasure.
So I was well disposed towards conductor David Bates’s decision to present a semi-staging of Handel’s Alcina that eliminated one pointless subsidiary character and replaced the harpsichord-accompanied recitative that drives the story forward with a spoken narration, written by Lady June Chichester and declaimed with elegance, wit and panache by no less a personage than Joanna Lumley.
The success of this experiment was instant. Only the most pedantic of purists could object; I certainly can’t believe that anyone else missed the recitative, which does more to obfuscate than clarify and contains scant intrinsic musical merit. No damage is done to overall rhythm either: the composer’s calculated contrasts in tone, pace and key between the arias were preserved. This repertory needs more such robustly imaginative rethinking of its conventions.
The classical interior of St John’s Smith Square, with its resonant acoustic, offered a splendid setting for this happy event. Under Bates’s direction, his band La Nuova Musica played with terrific verve, and a super selection of soloists was assembled.
The title role of the enchantress, whose powers are defeated, was taken by Lucy Crowe. In deliquescent voice, she wallowed – at the cost of consonants, regrettably – in some of Handel’s most celestially gorgeous inspirations, bringing special poignancy to the ravishing lament Ah! mio cor! and a witchy intensity to Ombre pallide.
As Ruggiero, the man whom Alcina has ensnared, American countertenor Patrick Terry (apprenticed at the Royal Opera) made a fine impression. The timbre of his voice is not inherently lovely, but his excellent technique saw him sail through the virtuosic Sta nell’ircana and his sensitive artistry was evident in the lyrical Verdi prati. Remember his name.
Rebecca Bottone, Madeleine Shaw, William Berger and Christopher Turner lent first-rate support in smaller roles, and the only small fly in the ointment was the miking of Joanna Lumley. She has excellent diction and delivery that could project across a parade ground – was the amplification really necessary?
The classical interior of St John’s Smith Square offered a splendid setting for this happy event