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The chorus of Cretan fishermen. Pictures: Clive Barda IdomeneoGarsington OperaWormsley Estate, Stokenchurch***** SO familiar are
most people with Mozart’s three Da Ponte operas -
The Marriage of Figaro,
Don Giovanni
and
Cosi fan tutte,
plus his famous last effort,
The Magic Flute,
that it is easy to overlook what preceded. The answer is some 15
operas, or parts of operas, of which the most outstanding of these is
Idomeneo, re di Creta,
one of several operas with a classical setting, and so consistently
superb it easily stands on a par with those mentioned, and with his
later Roman opera, La Clemenza di Tito. Idomeneo
was first seen in Munich (in 178 It’s equally difficult to see why, even now, it’s
not a more regular part of the European mainstream repertoire. However,
Britain has done better than most. The Royal Opera recently returned to
it with a production by the excellent Martin Kušej; Grange Park put it
on in 2012; and there was a very presentable staging by Opera North in
Leeds just a few years back. However, the present season (2015-16) has seen a
paltry three revivals in Germany, just one or two nights each, and one
production in Poland. A mere eight evenings, but no more, in an entire
season.
But now comes Garsington Opera, (formerly located
at a hillside manor east of Oxford and now in a spectacular new
construction just behind the Chiltern Ridge), with a production of
astounding power and impact, much of the excitement and drama thanks to
producer Tim Albery’s inventive and immensely consistent direction - not
least the manoeuvring around the stage of some 26 chorus members - and
to an arresting and rather daring design by Hannah Clark. Who is the central
character in Idomeneo?
As Albery presents it, it is, in effect, the sea. The title character is
the king of Crete, one of the Greek allies who on his return from Troy
suffers, Odysseus-like, more than his fair share of disaster from the
violence of the Aegean, initiated by the angry god Neptune. And the
impact of the set and costumes makes this clear. Clad in navy boiler suits, the chorus are
depicted as any-period fisher folk who know the dangers of their trade.
A vast poster-like picture of a potentially violent-looking ocean forms
the visual centrepiece. Fishing nets and rowing oars form an initial
backdrop. But above all, two massive green-blue Portakabin-like
containers, which are quite dramatically and artfully used to create
internal changes of scene, dominate the stage, alternating from
imprisoning bedroom to seafaring vessel to royal throne room. Mozart’s libretto, by
the Salzburg-based Giovanni Battista Varesco (1735-1805), who later
worked with the composer on an opera entitled
The Cairo Goose
(later abandoned), opens the door to numerous
magnificent exchanges, some of which are highly dramatic recitative
rather than arias as such. And it was the handling of the recitative,
often swift, always expressive, accompanied - perhaps unusually, but
extremely effectively - by piano that created some of the best musical
effects. There was no lapse in the intensity at any point. The role of the storm-battered ruler fell to
tenor Toby Spence, for many years one of the most delightful tenors on
the English dramatic stage, able to bring youthful spirit and (here)
mature command to numerous roles, and who emerged from an orange
lifejacket to confirm his glorious talents with an extraordinary burst
of coloratura, amazingly controlled, forceful and assertive, yet
strikingly expressive.The only surprise was that his Idomeneo seemed
wholly incapable of taking control of the situation. And with good
reason: tortured by his experiences at sea, and completely despairing at
the divine injunction that he sacrifice his own son - the first being he
encountered upon landing, we see him at the end, utterly desolate and
isolated, his rule shattered, his life’s work destroyed; a truly
depressed, pitiful looking figure. The great choruses of despair, conversely of
praise to Neptune, were resplendently sung (chorus master: Susanna
Stranders): impassioned, superbly unified, and where needed, really
vigorous. One could possibly be irritated by so many shiftings of
blue-clad figures - some a bit like recent
These boiler suited figures, massing together, in
fact perfectly suggested the poverty and emptiness, drudgery, tedium and
exhaustion of life on Crete, and their hapless dependence on the
initiative and leadership of the monarch. Two characters appear late in the story who play
a key role in the dénouement: Robert Murray’s High Priest, who looks to
all intents and purposes like yet another fisherman - (and perhaps, in
those days when the seaside community was stretched, a necessary
doubling, a leader drawn from the multitude); and then the awesome voice
of Neptune himself (Nicholas Masters), who appeared on stage as an
eerie, somewhat slithery figure. But worth picking out among the lesser
parts are the two points where Mozart allocates salient roles to a
miniature semi-chorus. Two male voices (Bradley Smith, Benjamin Lewis)
sang a Trojan duo; and three appealing Cretan figures were Annabel
Mountford, Hazel McBain and Elizabeth Lynch, who produced some of the
most attractive gentle singing of the evening: beautifully eloquent and
finessed, the effect of these voices from the chorus suggested it might
be a device Mozart could have used here more often. But two younger royal characters, pitted against
one another, both head over heels in love, the one with the Trojan
princess Ilia (some of Mozart’s finest lighter writing in the opera,
tenderly sung by Louise Alder), the other possessively determined to
trap Idomeneo’s son Idamante, produced the most stunning and
scintillating performances. The first was Caitlin Hulcup, whose very
first notes, dazzlingly projected, created an astounding effect as
Idamante, the son of Idomeneo, who his father has unwittingly undertaken
to sacrifice to Neptune in return for his safe return by sea; every
passage of aria or recitative was utterly gorgeous. Meanwhile Rebecca von Lipinski as the bossy
Elettra (Elektra) whose aspirations are shattered and who emerges as the
most tragic figure of all in the end, produced three of the most amazing
arias from Mozart’s remarkable score. These two were surely hard to
better: Idamante has some of the loveliest, most passionate writing in
all Mozart; and Elettra, whose determination to trap Idamante in a
loveless marriage are dashed, leaving her in desperation, concludes with
one of the most explosive and shattering of all the forceful operas in
Mozart. Absolutely knockout. Roderic Dunnett 07-16
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when Mozart was all but 25) and was even then a success. It’s puzzling
to note that it was not seen in Britain till Glasgow introduced it in
1934. Glyndebourne followed suit in 1951, Sadler’s Wells in 1962 and
Covent Garden not till 1978 - four years before the Met in New York.
stagings of Bach’s Passions; but the detail of Tim Albery’s direction,
creating a vast swathe or kaleidoscope of different blockings and loose
formations, to communicate anguish, loyalty, sympathy, support,
dejection, and a range of mutually supportive activities which included
the burying in a smashed-up container of black body bags containing
those who had perished of an Oedipus-like plague - nastily depicted by
the vomiting of a blue (possibly sea-like) liquid, as if all had
ingested bad squid.