St John’s, Smith Square
Paride – Ella Taylor
Elena – Lucy Anderson
Amore/Erasto – Lauren Lodge-Campbell
Pallas Athena – Milly Forrest
Trojans – Lucy Cronin, Adam Tunnicliffe, Lucy Cronin, Alex Jones
Dancers (Spartans, athletes) – Oliver Adam-Reynolds, Oscar Fonseca
Alicia Frost (choreography)
Jess Iliff (costumes)
Ian Chandler (lighting)
CHROMA
Least popular of Gluck’s reform operas, Paride ed Elena shows what little store we should set on popularity. (Do not Gluck’s operas more generally?) Bampton Classical Opera once again deserves our thanks in bringing a ‘neglected’—frankly, ignored—eighteenth-century opera to performance, first in Oxfordshire and now in its annual visit to St John’s, Smith Square. That it should do so at all is praiseworthy enough, that it should do so in ‘current circumstances’ all the more so. If I found some elements of staging, costumes in particular, a little makeshift, it is not worth labouring the point; circumstances were far from ideal.
The role of Paride, written for
a soprano castrato, poses a problem in that one will end up with a cast of five
sopranos—or one will transpose it down for a high tenor. Allegedly, for the nature
of the alleged ‘problem’ is unclear when one listens, especially to so
accomplished a performance as we heard from Ella Taylor. Taylor’s Paris—we may
as well use English, since the opera was sung in an English translation by
Gilly French—evinced youthful strength and vulnerability through Orphic song,
rising to more militaristic clamour where required. Their portrayal both
contrasted with and complemented Lucy Anderson’s equally multi-faceted Helen,
knowingly beguiling and resistant, ultimately moved—perhaps musically as much
as verbally—to confront and acknowledge the transformation of her own feelings.
As cunning agent of that transformation, Cupid posing as royal counsellor Erasto,
Lauren Lodge-Campbell shone and sparkled. Milly Forrest, a late replacement as
Pallas Athena, commanded attention as the deus
ex machina, as did members of the small chorus, Lucy Cronin first among equals given her accomplished first-act solo. So too did dancers Oliver
Adam-Reynolds Oscar Fonseca, who brought to proceedings a highly
physical eroticism otherwise lacking from the staging.
Thomas Blunt led CHROMA in a well considered, flowing account of considerable
cumulative drama. Here there was none of the stiffness I observed in a Bampton performance
earlier this year of La corona under
a different conductor. Blunt judged ebb and flow with due regard for
instrumental and vocal sensibilities, but above all with an ear to the greater
whole. Cuts were judicious and did little damage, which is not to say that one
might not wish to hear them restored in other situations. Here, no one could
have tired, in the way some people unaccountably seem to do so, of Classical drama
lyricised and rendered visible. Rarely if ever did a small instrumental ensemble
have one wishing for larger forces, the St John’s acoustic weaving its magic. Gluck
and Calazbigi will surely have won more converts, and willingness to explore
dance as musical drama augurs well for further Bampton explorations. Dare we
hope, perhaps, for a little Rameau or even Traetta? To be fair, more Gluck
would also be highly welcome. We shall see—and hear; at least I hope we shall.
