Milton Court Theatre
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| Images: Clive Barda Cupid (centre, Collin Shea) and chorus |
Aminta – Harriet Burns
Fillide – Carmen Artaza
Venus – Sîan Dicker
Adonis – Andrew Hamilton
Cupid – Collin Shay
Shepherdess – Katherine McIndoe
Shepherd – Damian Arnold
Victoria Newlyn (director)
Madeleine Boyd (designs)
Andrew May (lighting)
Karl Dixon (video)
Karl Dixon (video)
Chorus and Orchestra of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Chad Kelly (conductor)
The stature of John Blow
becomes clearer, it seems, with every encounter. Alas, paucity of encounters
remains the problem for many of us. This was the first live performance of Venus and Adonis I had heard, let alone
seen; I am delighted to report that it did not disappoint. Indeed, it brought
vividly to life what so many of us know intellectually: that if Purcell’s
genius will likely always remain the loftiest summit of English Restoration
music, it stands far from alone; and that, moreover, Dido and Aeneas owes a great deal to the example of what is rightly
considered the first English opera. When one hears Blow’s anthems, many
characteristics one has hitherto considered quintessentially Purcellian are
revealed to be part of a common musical language; the same is true here, and
for dramaturgy as well as musical language.
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| Adonis (Andrew Hamilton) |
Any passable performance of Dido – ‘Tristan und Isolde in a pintpot’, Raymond Leppard once called it –
will fly by; so did this more than passable performance of Venus and Adonis. Conductor Chad Kelly seemed very much in his
element, continuo and orchestral playing warm, flexible, charged with dramatic
meaning and atmosphere. The singers did too. Sîan Dicker sang and acted a
splendidly voluptuous Venus: sexier than Dido, yet moving towards similar
grief. If the latter were ultimately more generalised, that shows the final
distinction between Blow’s opera and Purcell’s and is no reflection upon a fine
performance indeed. Andrew Hamilton’s Adonis, perhaps not unlike Aeneas, was
similarly imbued with allure: less complex, in his own way more vulnerable –
he, after all, meet death – and a blanker sheet for projection in an
under-acknowledged reversal of gender norms. Collin Shay’s Cupid fascinated.
Presumably in conjunction with director, Victoria Newlyn, Shay presented a god
of love by turns sullen, awkward – childish, one might say – who sprang to
animated life when finally heeding the call to use his bow. Damian Arnold’s
finely sung and acted Shepherd had one wishing there were more for him to do,
the chorus from which he sprang exemplary in delivery of notes, words, stage
action and that alchemy we call opera. Newlyn’s production presented Venus as
an artist(e), her final words delivered movingly almost as a nightclub torch
song. Video projections of the random world of Internet dating – iCupid, should
we call it? – and a telling contrast between such urban modernity and the
decidedly down-at-heel American hunting community from which poor Adonis had
been plucked brought to contemporary life dramatic conflicts that have haunted
our civilisation however far back we may care to trace.
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| Cupid, Aminta (Carmen Artaza), Fillide (Harriet Burns) |
I was less sure about her
staging of Handel’s Italian cantata, Aminta
e Fillide, and ultimately less sure whether staging it had been a good idea
at all. This is not a dramatic piece and was never intended to be. Concert performance
without stage hyperactivity would surely have served it better. One can try, of
course, and I should be delighted to be prove wrong. Frenetic scene changes
taking us from airport lounges to early video games were doubtless fun for
those taking part, extras included, but seemed only to confirm that less would
have been decidedly more. Cupid's linking presence felt forced; still more so did the desultory appearance of Botticelli's Birth of Venus at beginning and end.Here, Kelly seemed more constrained by what has
become ‘period’ convention, vibrato-less strings sometimes grating, the music in
general more regimented. However, Harriet Burns and Carmen Artaza offered some
dazzling singing, especially later on, coloratura and range of colour alike
showing what should really lie at the heart of this pastoral.
