Orpheus in the Underworld

by Jacques Offenbach

seen at the London Coliseum on 30 October 2019

ENO are presenting four Orpheus related operas this season; this is the second that I have seen. Sian Edwards conducts Ed Lyon as Orpheus and Mary Bevan as Eurydice, with Alex Otterburn as Pluto, Willard White as Jupiter and Lucia Lucas as Public Opinion in a production directed by Emma Rice and designed by Lizzie Clachan.

Offenbach's opera is a satirical response to the boring conventional dramas and operas of his and the preceding generations which were heavily reliant on sententious classical subjects and allusions. Originally written in two acts in 1858 and expanded to four in 1874, it became one of his greatest successes, and is of course the origin of the famous tun now associated with the can-can. The story certainly subverts the classic myth, with Orpheus and Eurydice detesting one another and Orpheus colluding with the plot engineered by Pluto (disguised as Aristaeus) to kill Eurydice. She in turn is at first happy to find that the shepherd she has been in love with is actually a god, though 'life' in Hades soon palls. In the meantime the gods on Olympus are mercilessly sent up as somnolent and self-indulgent hedonists eager for a thrilling distraction in Hades, while the mortals are trifled with in the denouement, Orpheus tricked by a thunderbolt from Jupiter into looking back at Eurydice, and she in turn handed of by the king of the gods to be a priestess of Bacchus.

The Mask of Orpheus

by Harrison Birtwhistle, libretto by Peter Zinovieff

seen at the London Coliseum on 29 October 2019

ENO are presenting four Orpheus related operas this season; this is the first that I have seen. Martyn Brabbins and James Henshaw conduct Peter Hoare as Orpheus the Man with Daniel Norman as Orpheus the Myth; Maria Fontanels-Simmons as Eurydice the Woman with Claire Barnett-Jones as Eurydice the Myth; James Cleverton as Aristaeus the Man with Simon Biley as Aristaeus the Myth; and Claron McFadden as the Oracle. There are also mime artists Matthew Smith, Alfa Marks and Leo Hedman representing Orpheus, Eurydice and Aristaeus respectively as 'Heroes'.

The opera is dense with allusion and patterning, as various versions of the Orpheus myth are presented and repeated intertwined with one another, and interrupted by three 'Passing Clouds' and three 'Allegorical Flowers' illustrating other myths of fateful death. Three acts, three main parts played by three people each, three Clouds, three Flowers; also three priests, three women and three furies - the idea of cyclical recurrence is very strong. The music is an astonishing mixture of percussion, wind and electronic, rising at times to shattering climaxes, and reducing at other moments to the buzzing of bees or the almost sub-aural murmuring of the sea. 

Don Pasquale

by Gaetano Donizetti, libretto by Giovanni Ruffini and Donizetti

seen at Covent Garden on 21 October 2019

Evelino Pidò conducts Bryn Terfel as Don Pasquale, Markus Werba as Doctor Malatesto, Ioan Hoteo as Ernesto and Olga Peretyatko as Norina in Damiono Michieletto's new production of Don Pasquale, designed by Paolo Fantin.

The opera presents a light-hearted view of the perennial conflict between age and youth, as the young lovers Ernesto and Norina, aided by their friend Doctor Malatesto, outwit Ernesto's tyrannous uncle Don Pasquale. The older man, rich and unmarried, is ripe for ridicule in the comic tradition, while Norina is the typical wily young woman, Ernesto the lovelorn dreamer, and Malatesta the catalyst for comic reversals of fortune.

Turandot

by Giacomo Puccini

seen by live streaming from The Metropolitan Opera New York on 12 October 2019

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Christine Goerke as Turandot, Yusif Eyvazov as Calàf, Eleonora Buratto as Liù and James Morris as Timur in a revival of Franco Zefffirelli's 1987 production of Puccini's last opera.  

The first thing to say is that of course it is both musically powerful and visually splendid. The Met orchestra under their new musical director delivers the score with an astonishing punch, rendering the gaudy splendour of the Imperial scenes almost overwhelming, but also providing a more sensitive accompaniment to the more intimate scenes of bewilderment and growing love. In this they are mtched by some great singing from the three principals Goerke (icily imperious and then troubled), Eyvazov (passionate and determined) and Buratto (hopelessly in love and self-sacrficial). Unending streams of chorus provide the necessary heft to complement the orchestral fireworks in the great set pieces in all three acts. The overall result is viscerally thrilling.

Agrippina

by George Frideric Handel

seen at Covent Garden on 11 October 2019

Barrie Kosky directs Joyce DiDonato in the title role with Franco Fagioli as Nerone (her son), Gianluca Buratto as the emperor Claudio (her husband), Iestyn Davies as Ottone, a Roman general, Lucy Crowe as Poppea, courted by Ottone, Nerone and Claudio, Andrea Mastroni as Pallante and Eric Jureas as Narciso, two freedmen servants of the emperor, and José Coca Loza as Lesbo, an imperial servant, in the Royal Opera's first production of Agrippina, with Maxim Emelyanychev conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

The opera, loosely based on historical fact, or gossip, as the case may be, and also reputed to mirror papal politics of the time of composition (1709, reveals Agrippina as a scheming and powerful woman determined to see her son Nerone nominated as Claudio's successor. She is married to Claudio, but Nerone is her son by a former husband. Nerone is portrayed as a weak-willed mother's boy, easily diverted from an attachment to the beautiful young Poppea by promises of power. Pallante and Narciso are putty in Agrippina's hands until they realisethey have been set against each other in identical terms. Poppea seems an easy victim too as Agrippina persuades her that the virtuous Ottone has abandoned her for political power - the very reverse of the truth. Poppea herself proves to be no mean schemer when she realises the truth, flirting with Nerone while Ottone is hidden in the room, and then with Claudio with both Ottone and Nerone hidden - bedroom farce as a counterpoint to Agrippina's more political machinations.