Bajazet (or Il Tamerlano)

by Antonio Vivaldi, libretto by Agostino Piovene and others

seen at the Linbury Theatre, Covent Garden on 12 February 2022

Vivaldi composed his opera Bajazet in 1735, some dozen years after Handel's treatment of the same story titled Tamerlano (performed on the main Covent Garden stage in 2010). This production, essentially created by and for Irish National Opera with the Royal Opera in collaboration, is directed by Adele Thomas with Peter Whelan conducting the Irish Baroque Orchestra (ten instrumentalists and himself).

The Linbury Theatre provides an intimate, and perhaps ultimately more satisfactory, setting for Baroque opera than the main auditorium, especially with such a small instrumental ensemble. In a simple box set of roughly gilded walls all the action between the six characters can easily take place, and their various experiences of entrapment can be presented credibly.

Bajazet, the defeated Turkish sultan (bass-baritone Gianluca Margheri), is the most obvious prisoner, often chained to a giant rope attached to a formidable pulley hook breaking through the ceiling. He is bedraggled, with flesh wounds on his arms and face, and dressed in dull clothing, the plaything of the victorious Tamerlano (an extraordinarily seedy countertenor James Laing, exuding sleaze and entitlement in equal measure). Andronico, a Greek prince and ally of Tamerlano (also a countertenor, Eric Jurenas) is by contrast smartly dressed in a suit with a sumptuous sash in royal blue, a picture of pained collusion with the brutal conqueror. While these two men are not physical prisoners like the hapless Bajazet, Tamerlano is at the mercy of his capricious whims, and these in turn constrain everyone around him: Andronico's hopes of marriage with Asteria, the daughter of Bajazet, are confounded when Tamerlano takes a liking to her and ditches his intended bride Irene (offering her to Andronico instead, where of course 'offering' only means insisting that they marry).

Asteria (mezzo soprano Niamh O'Sullivan), though not in chains like her father, is trapped by the sudden shift in Tamerlano's marriage plans, and is well aware of her powerlessness; we first see her in rags, wild-eyed and injured, and she wastes no time in venting her fury and frustration at Andronico whom she assumes has betrayed their love for the promise of Irene's superior political position. The contrast with the imperious Irene herself (soprano Claire Booth) is marked by the latter's stunning blue costume, but even she, though clearly a woman not to be messed with, is trapped into the degrading position of pretending to be a servant in order to further her ambitions.

The story is thus full of opportunities for recrimination, misunderstanding, the naked use and abuse of power, despair and rage, and correspondingly lacking in any indication of tenderness or finer feeling - even the love of Asteria and Andronico never comes across as revivifying, and the father/daughter relationship has none of the depth explored by later operatic composers. In a court dominated by a psychopathic vulgarian such as Tamerlano perhaps one cannot expect anything refined to survive. But there is ample opportunity for vocal pyrotechnics on all sides, including a staggering aria from Irene to close the first act, stunningly executed by Claire Booth. Even Idapse (soprano Aoife Miskelly), the only non-royal character, has moments in the limelight, and, having been given the role of dispensing Tamerlano's medicines, it turns out she has a crucial role in a surprising denouement.

The decorousness of Baroque music, and the potentially deadening awkwardness of a long succession of da capo arias (in which the first phrases are always repeated with more elaborated ornamentaton after the middle section) are both overcome in this production by spirited playing and electrifying singing and acting, with several characters literally bouncing off the walls in their various frustrations. Vivaldi's operatic oeuvre is not well known, but this was an exciting introduction to his repertoire.