Orlando Review – a bold leap through Handel’s famous opera | Opera

The woods outside the theater in Longborough, in the heart of the Cotswolds, he sneaks in and goes on stage to prepare for the opening season in Orlando. With a story that sometimes seems like an excuse for a series of shows, it is not an obvious choice for the first Handel opera festival in ten years, but Sinéad O’Neill’s production is confident in the work and is attractive enough to lead us.

The weak plot comes from Ariosto’s poem Orlando Furioso. The general Orlando loves the princess Angelica, but he is not interested; he loves Medoro. The shepherdess Dorinda loves Medoro – but she loves Angelica, see above. The usual baroque-opera romance and noble devotion are absent, and what we have instead is school lunch gossip. Someone hears a word that wasn’t written for them and they jump to a conclusion; someone has unwisely given a special bracelet. Orlando then breaks down: he has a long, melodious song and then goes on a killing spree opposed by the leading magician, Zoroastro, thus allowing for a happy ending.

Andrew Foster-Williams’ famous magician Zoroastro – bearded, with long, powdered hair – is almost our compere here: after all, many 19th-century operas require a moment of divine intervention, but not many require a magician to lead the way. His three silent, crippled servants look like witches at first, and there’s an unsettling aspect to this mysterious forest, with Anisha Fields’ trees, bed and rusty stairs lit by Ben Ormerod. But everything is more A Midsummer Night’s Dream than Macbeth. Steadily and unwaveringly, the guardians enter the willing Angelica into a big cat, and show many of Dorinda’s wild animal friends – because in O’Neill’s vision there is more of a Disney princess about Dorinda, who dances with rabbits and sings the song of the nightingale doll.

At the center of it all is a wonderful performance like Orlando from Beth Taylorhis voice is muffled: one moment it’s like a trumpet, the next it’s soft; it is dangerous, soft, heavy, light as air, and very fast. What it isn’t is the display of a steady, coherent mezzo-soprano tone – but that’s not what the part cries out for, either, and that’s why we have Katie Bray’s excellent Medoro. Anna Devin’s soprano vocals stand out in Angelica’s pyrotechnics, and Dorinda’s performance is well-received from soprano Kelli-Ann Masterson. Handel’s masterpiece has its share of incongruous moments and sounds appealing thanks to the players of the Academy of Ancient Music, in their first Longborough show, with conductor Christopher Moulds. But singing is what makes it all worth it.