Review - Alcina - Opera Australia

Baroque Pearl
Its December and normally the only Handel in town is his overrated, overexposed and lugubrious sacred oratorio Messiah. How refreshing then to see and hear his celebration of the profane Alcina. Considered one of Handel's greatest operas it is also one of his sexiest. Derived from Ariosto's Renaissance epic set in the time of Charlemagne and about the tribulations of the knight Rogero and his love for the warrior maiden Bradamant. Here called Ruggiero (Catherine Carby) he has fallen under the spell of the sorceress Alcina (Rachelle Durkin). Alcina captivates men and when she tires of them turns them into the flora and fauna that cover her enchanted island. The intrepid Bradamante arrives with her tutor Melisso and disguising herself as a man determines to rescue Ruggiero. In filtering a Renaissance filtering of the early Christian world to an 18th century audience Handel cast the three central roles for a soprano (Alcina) a castrato (Ruggiero) and a contralto (Bradamante). In turn this production filters the 18th century through contemporary theatrical practice and the result is a very rewarding production in theatrical and musical terms of a pre-Mozart opera.

The set by the joint designers Andrew Hays and Kimm Kovac is certainly one of the most attractive sets in Opera Australia's history since Tom Lingwood's for act two of Der Rosenkavalier in 1972. Set within the existing proscenium arch this 'false' stage resembles a Palladian theatre of the Renaissance that Ariosto may have known. The walls are covered with stone images of human and animal figures, Alcina's abandoned and transformed lovers, and hanging high above the stage is Ruggiero's armour abandoned in favour of amour. While the overture plays the opera's back story is played out. When the agitated second section of the music starts Bradanmante (Alexandra Sherman) and Melisso (Richard Alexander) enter. Bradamante hacks away her braids and removes her gown to reveal trousers. At the back of the stage, until now in darkness, the figure of her lover Ruggiero is picked out by a soft light and then two white arms come from behind to caress him followed by the face and tousled red hair of Alcina. When the opera proper begins Alcina's sensuous world is evoked in this very classical setting by using very contemporary theatrics. Attending on the sorceress are dancers dressed like fashion models, barefoot with see-through lounge clothes, black rimmed eyes but with discreet satyr horns sticking through their bleached bed-hair. They dance unobtrusive 'chunky' moves while Alcina sings her first aria lulling Ruggiero further into her languorous snare. With the castrato Ruggiero now sung by the androgynous looking Carby and stalked by the equally androgynous looking Sherman that contemporary fascination with the implied fluid sexuality of Baroque opera with gender-mixed roles performed by sexually re-engineered men kicks in. And as the opera is about people in the sexual thrall of each other director Justin Way takes the 'ball' (no pun intended) and runs with it. Everything seems to be imbued with eroticism, even the statue that holds Alcina's power (instead of the rather prosaic urn) has water provocatively spilling from its mouth, over the breasts and down across its thighs throughout the first two acts (like Alcina's power, it dries up in act three). This all pervading sensuality is made most apparent by the use of a huge mirror that reflects dancers costumed like the principals who interpret the emotional conflicts in the arias and are projected like cinematic thought balloons behind the singers. This is a fabulous touch, the imagery has that high fashion house look if occasionally a little over exuberant, as Morgana (Natalie Jones) sings her famous "Tornami a vagheggiar" her dancer double, for example, throws her legs around like a rococo lap dancer.

The costume designs, like the set, reflect the 18th century, the Renaissance, the present and everything in between. Alcina's costumes evoke the baroque fantasies of Vivian Westwood or the William Morris fabric clad sorceresses of the Pre-Raphaelites. Durkin's first entry, by the way, is in a see-through negligee as though her enchanted island is a giant boudoir. With a glamorous figure to match her voice, Durkin could consider a modeling career (she and Teddy have made this 'teh hawt' opera season). Her captain Oronte (Henry Choo) wears modern military dress clothes as does Melisso. Melisso's uniform combines the uniform of a Latin American general but with one arm clad in medieval armour. It looks a little odd at first, like Robocop, but he is advisor to a warrior and therefore looks both soldier and diplomat. The chorus that appear only briefly are utilised cleverly. Painted to look like the set they appear occasionally as the enchanted men and turned to stone but able to speak and move and Alcina's, Morgana's or Oronte's command. At one point in the opening of the second act their arms reach out of the walls and they hold lights, like the living candelabras in Cocteau's film of Beauty and the Beast, while Ruggiero sings about being hidden in the darkness of Alcina's spell. This in not dumbing down opera into colour and movement, rather it is illuminating (pardon the pun again) it.

Musically this is as satisfying a recreation of the 18th century as the visuals. Conductor Anthony way presides over a small band of strings with recorders, oboes, bassoons, horns and the all important harpsichord. The strings have that slightly wiry sound that reflects current thought in early music performance practice. Instead of a normal opera pit band this is the ensemble of Handel's Concerti Grossi, responding to each other like chamber musicians rather than the heavy industrial activity that orchestras became in the following century. In deference to the Italian musicians who influenced Handel's operatic style a theorbo looms out of the pit like a crane at a construction site. For the extended arias in the second act the obbligato instruments are brought up onto the stage. In Morgana's "Ama, sospira, ma non t'offende" a violinist (Markiyan Melnychenko) is costumed like one of the satyr boys and he and Jones circle each other appear to challenge each other to extemporise their embellishments out of the music. This is again like Handel in another mode, the Handel of the nine German arias or the early Italian cantatas where with one or two singers and a handful of musicians Handel made tiny settings of classical poetry as breathtaking as any of his more elaborate operas. A reminder that, although giving a rehearsed performance, this is living music making, the singers and instrumentalists constantly alert to each other.

The singing was of the highest order as though this new and fascinating production is bringing out the best in everybody. As Bradamante, with the low lying but smouldering vocal lines, Sherman was excellent. Russian by birth her voice has the smokey sound of a Slavic mezzo, "E gelosia" with its chesty florid passages was great. Oronte, the little boy in search of his father is a minor part but given some fantastic music. The last florid vocals in the opera ("Barbara! io ben lo so) are given to him and Hye Seoung Kwon sings them brilliantly, the voice surprisingly big and secure. She also compliments the fascinating gender-fluid line up. As Alcina Durkin is a class act. In the second act the two extraordinarily long and varied arias which might have presented her with a challenge actually inspires her into some her finest singing. In the most taxing of them all "Ah! Ruggiero crudel" and the contrasting "Ombre palliade" she is on fire. The repeated upward runs in "Ombre palliade" are clean and precise and run up into a full and rich upper voice and the last of them is crowned with a gorgeous little trill. I'd like to see Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride revived for her. Carby sang all of Ruggiero's wildly varied music well. Whatever the original tessitura the castrato Ruggiero may have had is open to speculation and Carby elaborated the aria repeats within her mezzo compass.

Just as Mozart's Don Giovanni is hide bound by two centuries of constant performance practice Handel's operas, having disappeared from the stage for two centuries have less exact musical and dramatic expectations. We expect them to sound like whatever the most prevalent early music performance style is at the time. This Alcina certainly does but with the kind of flexibility that 18th century vocal had but which can be imprisoned by too much scholarship. There are a few trims in the music, most noticeably the ballet at the end of act two. But as act one ends so bluntly with "Tornami a vagheggiar", ending act two the same way with Alcina's "Ombre palliade" doesn't seem that bad although I would have like to have seen the mirror dancers act out the current state of affairs as Alcina realises that she has succumbed to the human affliction of love and sexual jealously. Alcina's dwindling power is however supurbly realised in the third act when the set, lit from behind, begins to blaze as though molten gold were filling her cavern of darkness with blazing light.
There are many wonderous things about this production, it looks a million dollars and could stand up against the best opera productions in the most prestigious houses in the world.

Alcina - Rachelle Durkin
Ruggiero - Catherine Carby
Morgana - Natalie Jones
Bradamante - Alexandra Sherman
Oronte - Henry Choo
Melissa - Richard Alexander
Oberto - Hye Seoung Kwon

Opera Australia Chorus
Orchestra Victoria
Conductor - Antony Walker
Director - Justin Way
Set and Costume Designs - Andrew Hays & Kimm Kovac
Lighting Designer - Damien Cooper
State Theatre, the Arts Centre
December 1, 4, 7, 10, 12 & 15
This is an expanded version of the published review here