Royal Opera House
Music Master – Sir Thomas
Allen
Major-Domo - Christoph Guest
Lackey – Jihoon Kim
Officer – David Butt Philip
Composer – Ruxandra Donose
Tenor, Bacchus – Roberto
Saccà
Wig-Maker – Ashley Riches
Zerbinetta – Jane Archibald
Prima Donna, Ariadne – Karita
Mattila
Dancing Master – Ed Lyon
Naiad – Sofia Fomina
Dryad – Karen Cargill
Echo – Kiandra Howarth
Harlequin – Markus Werba
Truffaldino – Jeremy White
Scaramuccio – Wynne Evans
Brighella – Paul Schweinester
Christof Loy (director)
Herbert Murauer (designs)
Jennifer Lipton (lighting)
Beate Vollack (choreography)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera
House
Sir Antonio Pappano
(conductor)
I hope I shall be forgiven
for keeping this relatively brief. Having been distinctly under the weather
this week, I have fallen a little behind, and in any case have written about
Christof Loy’s production of Ariadne auf
Naxos before. This time, hearteningly, I recaptured some of my earlier
enthusiasm, having found the staging looking somewhat tired last time around.
Perhaps it was a matter of the revival direction, or perhaps it was a matter of
sitting closer to the stage (the back of the Stalls Circle, the restricted view
seemingly not much of an issue). At any rate, the virtues that I had originally
hymned – a very real sense of the audience and the audience member being told
that this was a tale told about them, a nice balance between the present and a
re-imagined and then re-imagined again eighteenth century – were married to a
well-acted company performance.
For the most part the singing
was very good too. Thomas Allen’s Music Master continues to inspire; this time,
he found a fine foil in Ed Lyon’s Dancing Master, his German as impressive as
the French of the repertory in which I have previously tended to hear him. Both
can act too – and did. Ruxandra Donose’s Composer was beautifully sung – and a
character in whom one could truly believe, whom one could take to one’s heart.
I am not sure that I have heard so distinguished a trio of Naiad, Dryad, and
Echo, as Sofia Fomina, Karen Cargill, and Kiandra Howarth, whether corporately
or individually. Markus Werba offered a predictably excellent Harlequin, well
supported by the rest of his troupe. Jane Archibald reached for the heights and
attained them with her lovely Zerbinetta: an object-lesson in the role.
Disappointments? Roberto Saccà’s dry-toned Bacchus, fare more so than I had
heard in Salzburg in 2012. And, I am afraid that, try as I might, I could not
find Karita Mattila ‘right’ for the role of Ariadne. She is a wonderfully
engaging artist, and there was much to enjoy, but I missed the floating of line
that seems essential to the part, likewise the neo-Mozartian grace. Others have
clearly felt differently, and I have tried not to be hidebound by recollections
of great historic assumptions; ultimately, however, and with considerable
regret, I thought Mattila miscast.
The other disappointment,
perhaps more predictably, was Antonio Pappano’s conducting. Quite why he
insists on inflicting himself upon a German repertoire for which he clearly has
little sensitivity, let alone understanding, remains a mystery. Granted, this
was not nearly so bad as his Wagner, and there was considerable life to the
Prologue. However, the Opera soon became listless, with little sense of
harmonic or indeed any other direction. The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
played very well, but how one longed for the wisdom, refinement, wit, and
humanity the late Colin Davis brought to this work in this production.
