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Virtue triumphant London
Royal Festival Hall
02/11/2002 -
George Frideric Handel: Rodelinda
Emma Bell (Rodelinda), Jean Rigby (Edwige), Daniel Taylor (Bertarido), Artur Stefanowicz (Unulfo), Kurt Streit (Grimoaldo), Umberto Chiummo (Garibaldo)
William Christie (conductor)
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment The South Bank Centre's Discovering Handel series, taking place from now until April, is a luxuriously resourced survey of Handel's oeuvre. You could quibble with "discovering", since the one-of-everything programme includes Jephtha (representing English oratorio), some concerti grossi, the Coronation Anthems, the Water Music, and some of the recorder sonatas, as well as the fairly familiar Rodelinda (representing opera). But there's also a genuine rarity, Il trionfo di tempo e del Disinganno, representing Italian oratorio although La resurrezione (three previous performances in London in the past two years) is also in the season, and Andreas Scholl singing Italian cantatas. If there is discovery to be made, it will probably be that Handel's music is amazing in many different ways even when it is already familiar, or made up of familiar material.
The series started well with a concert performance of Rodelinda, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under William Christie and a cast made up from those of two Glyndebourne Festival runs. (The OAE is the house orchestra for the series.) Rodelinda is these days almost as familiar as Giuilio Cesare, both as a source of recital arias for sopranos and counter-tenors and as a comico-serio-pastoral tragedy with a happy ending, and there is much in it that is essence of opera, even if you aren't used to the rules of the period: a chaste but passionate soprano drama queen, a tormented tyrant (a tenor, even), a deranged control-freak baritone villain and a dotty erotomane mezzo who comes through in the end. There's also a semi-comic loyal retainer, a graveyard scene, a prison scene that foreshadows Fidelio and a beloved spouse twice believed dead to bereft arias.
The singers, in concert dress but generally thoroughly in character from the production, performed the drama as if it made sense. As a result, it pretty much did, without the aid of the silent-movie (or early noir) concept that justified the heavy situations as melodrama or high camp. The music, as often in concert performances, got to speak for itself using its inherent dramatic rhetoric. The singers were far from reverential, though, giving full-blooded and full-voiced performances that might well have won over Verdians, if not bel-canto fanatics.
Emma Bell as Rodelinda as Rodelinda even had a touch of the Sarah Bernhardts, presumably inherited from the silent-movie models of the production but obviously in tune with her own style, as well as with her vocal style, which might turn out to be at home in Strauss. She was a heroine you look up to in awe rather than one you fall in love with. Jean Rigby was entertainingly flaky as Edwige, perhaps not quite forceful enough vocally for a bad girl. Umberto Chiummo was impeccably villainous as the sinister Garibaldo, resonant but never hammy. Artur Stefanowicz was endearing, camp enough, as the go-anywhere dogsbody Unulfo. His voice is showing signs of wear already, but his vocal technique seems to have improved greatly over the past couple of years.
Daniel Taylor was a glamorous Bertarido, utterly butch in spite of his blond curls, and fast becoming a superb singer. His duet with Bell at the end of act two (when Rodelinda and Bertarido think they are saying goodbye forever) was unbearably moving. The duet itself is almost up there with the similar one in act two of Theodora or the one at the end of Sosarme, and Bell and Walker blended perfectly in it. Kurt Streit was also terrific as the tyrant Grimoaldo who really just wants to be loved. He doesn't quite look the part in his natural state, without the white makeup and slicked back hair -- he actually looks quite normal and non-descript -- but his voices is extremely beautiful, perfect for the music, and (in spite of a handful of fluffs) he was completely inside the drama, particularly good in his understated but disturbing mad scene and his final aria where he wishes he were a shepherd.
The OAE were also on superb form, giving William Christie a performance of enormous style and polish.
H.E. Elsom
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