Aida

by Giuseppe Verdi (libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni)

seen at the Coliseum on 9 October 2017

Phelim McDermott directs and Keri-Lynn Wilson conducts this new production of Aida with sets designed by Tom Pye. The principal singers are Latonia Moore as Aida, Gwyn Hughes Jones as Radamès, Michelle DeYoung as Amneris and Musa Ngqungwana as Amonasro, with Robert Winslade Anderson as Ramfis and Matthew Best as the Pharaoh. 

The opera, famous for some very grand crowd scenes (in particular the triumphal march in the second act) actually hinges on several very intimate personal encounters, given that the central dilemma is that of divided loyalties - those of Aida between her love for Radamès and for her father Amonasro and her fatherland; and those of Radamès between his love for Aida, and Ethiopian princess, and his loyalty to his own country of Egypt. Complicating this is the unrequited love of the princes Amneris for Radamès. Despite the opportunities for bombast, the opera opens with an extremely quiet prelude, and concludes with the two lovers expiring in a tomb while Amneris prays quietly for forgiveness.

La Bohème

by Giacomo Puccini (libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica after Murger)

seen by live streaming (repeat) from Covent Garden on 8 October 2017

Antonio Pappano conducts and Richard Jones directs this new Covent Garden production (the first in 43 years), with sets designed by Stewart Laing. It features Michael Fabiano as Rodolfo, Nicola Car as Mimi, Mariusz Kwiecien as Marcello, Joyce el-Khoudry standing in for Simona Mihai as Musetta, Luca Tittoto as Colline and Florian Sempey as Schaunard.

The previous production had many revivals but, even when well-loved, such things cannot go on forever; new casts begin to look trapped in old ideas. Richard Jones has been responsible for some controversial productions in the past, but here he has made an emotionally charged tribute to a work that could drown in sentimentality or misplaced jollity, while at the same time celebrating its theatricality.

The Barber of Seville

by Gioachino Rossini (libretto Cesare Sterbini after Beaumarchais)

seen at the Coliseum on 7 October 2017

Jonathan Miller's 1987 ENO production, conducted by Hilary Griffiths and designed by Tanya McCallin, is revived by Peter Relton with Eleazar Rodríguez as Count Almaviva, Sarah Tynan as Rosina, Morgan Pearse as Figaro, Alan Opie as Doctor Bartolo and Alastair Miles as Don Basilio.

The setting is naturalistic, with the first act outside Doctor Bartolo's house and the remainder in the upper floor reception room whose window conveniently looks over the street. This all works extremely well with the eighteenth century costumes and the references to commedia dell'arte figures (principally the musicians Count Almaviva employs in the opening scene, but this sets the tone). The lightness - not to say frothiness - of the music is allowed full rein with no intrusive directorial distractions, and the relative absurdity of the plot survives because it is all dressed safely in the past.

King Arthur

by Henry Purcell

seen semi-staged at the Barbican Hall on 2 October 2017

Richard Egarr directed the Academy of Ancient Music and its choir, with Ray Fearon as the narrator and six soloists, in a performance of Purcell's music for this piece interspersed with poems reflecting ideas of nationhood, war, political dissension, and so forth, in a performance designed to be 'King Arthur in the Age of Brexit'. Dryden's text and story (which form the spoken part of the 'semi opera') are totally abandoned, though the idea of a conflict (originally between Britons and Saxons) is preserved in the two groups of the chorus who represent, broadly speaking, Leavers and Remainers in the Brexit referendum and its aftermath.