Handel's Alcina, Barbican | reviews, news & interviews
Handel's Alcina, Barbican
Handel's Alcina, Barbican
An unforgettable night for lovers of the Baroque - and the jumpsuit
Sunday, 05 December 2010
Classical music does not get any cooler than mezzo Vesselina Kasarova. She jived. She grooved. She shuffled. She shimmied. She possessed the Barbican stage last night, an awesome black jumpsuit hanging off her rangy, kinetic figure, her neck sliding about like an Indian dancer's, her feet (in kitten heels) spinning like a jazzer's, her bullying arms posturing and prodding, her mouth flashing its whites like a primate's. Her voice? Extraordinarily weird, moving, honest, explosive. Her Sta nell'Ircana was a theatrical moment of the year.
It wasn't all about Kasarova's Ruggiero, however, by any means - which shows just what kind of night it was. Inga Kalna's Alcina had the best run of things vocally. Hers is a conventional - old-fashioned almost - full, strong soprano voice. And, in a way, typical of singers of her age and Eastern European background, she simply got on with things, effortlessly and eloquently giving sound to Handel's incredible melodic ideas. She was perhaps the only one whose technique allowed her to make gold out of all the fiery numbers and shadowy ones that were flung at her. (And she gets plenty of brownie points too for jumping in to replace an indisposed Anja Harteros.)
Yet despite Kalna's musicality - her calm, deranged contrapuntal snaking in Act Three was incredible - she was nearly upstaged (as were all the adults) by an angelic little boy, Shintato Nakajima (Oberto). His opening aria, "Who can lead me to my father?/ Who can cheer me to his return?", which is swaddled in cello, theorbo and harpsichord, was heartbreaking. Emotion through splendid arias there was plenty. Narrative exposition through recitative, thankfully, there was far less of. This is a simple and instructive story, most of it driven by the deeds of Bradamante, sung by fine mezzo Romina Basso. Her attempts to snap lover Ruggiero out of his spell - which has made him believe he is in love with Alcina - forms the central plank to the cautionary tale, around which boughs of jealousy and intrigue wind their way.
The other female plot-furtherer, Veronica Cangemi as Alcina's not-so-scheming sister Morgana, did very little for me. Her vocal offerings were full of effort, artifice and breathiness. Some might say the same about Kasarova. She certainly had her difficulties. Her leaps weren't always clean; her intonation wasn't always secure. But none of this mattered. She had personality and truth on her side. How accurately sore her "Verdi prati" was. How perfectly traumatic,
unattractive, her sotto voce became at times. And why not. Good opera is not about vocal beauty. It's about rightness. And no one could come close to the rightness of Kasarova's portrait of bewitched youth.
All of which still doesn't quite do the evening justice. For then we come to the orchestra. Ismene Brown might have her own thoughts on this (Les Talens Lyrique were performing the same night in London) but for me there is no finer French period orchestra than Les Musiciens du Louvre. And it had more than a few opportunities to show why. Their conductor, Mark Minkowski, had a large orchestra: three double basses, three oboes and three bassoons. He balanced the parts to perfection, allowing them all to flower and flow so freely and grandly that many of their radiant outbursts were as lush as a Brahms symphony.
And the presence of such a large bass section meant he could really rattle the foundations at the start of Act Two to indicate the substantial shift in perception that Ruggiero undergoes. Two recorders punctuated several arias with a heady burring. Cellist Nils Wieboldt joined in at one stage with a weighty Bach-like bit of vocalising. The leader of the orchestra, Thibault Noally, circles a singer with his sweet-toned violin at another point. And to finish it off, we were tootled to safety with a woody period piccolo. A great night for lovers of the Baroque - and the jumpsuit.
- Check out the two other Baroque operas in the Barbican's Orlando Furioso series
- See what's on at the Barbican this season
- Find Mark Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre on Amazon
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