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Handel, Orlando: Soloists, Orchestra Comunitat Valenciana, Conductor: Eduardo López Banzo. Palau de les Arts de Valencia. 21.02.2008 (JMI)

Production from The Royal Opera, Covent Garden

Director: Francisco Negrín.
Sets and costumes: Anthony Baker.
Lighting: Wolfgang Göbel.

Cast:

Orlando: Bejun Mehta
Angelica: Liubov Petrova
Medoro: Silvia Tro Santafé
Dorinda: Camilla Tilling
Zoroastro: Christian Senn

Orlando is not among the best Handel operas and has the added disadvantage of a rather boring libretto that demands an authentic directorial genius to handle its plot. The truth is that nowadays productions of baroque operas are really spectacular – which may have much to do with the popular success of the genre, especially when they overcome the excessive character stasis built into many of them. Robert Carsen offered a quite innovative production of Orlando years ago in Italy and David Alden was absolutely original in his production in Munich, playing humor card in his hand, even though comedy does'nt marry at all well with the opera's argumeny.  In both cases though, the public really enjoyed the productions, particularly in Munich.

Valencia offered a production by Francisco Negrín, originally staged at London's Covent  Garden. This staging fails to reach Carsen or Alden's creativity and it  was premiered in London, critics emphasized the fact that the production was  focused in the singers. In other words, it is traditional -  which turns out to be insufficient to grab the attention and interest of an audience not familiar with works of this kind. Mr.  Negrín transfers the action to the time of the opera's  composition  and the sets are basically a revolving stage showing a variety of different rooms and decoration. There are suitable baroque costumes and a decent lighting plot but the biggest problem remains the static action. Most likely in a city used to baroque operas, like London, the production would be more appreciated. Mr. Negrin does use some dancers to representing Eros, Mars and Venus, which is a good enough idea but not sufficiently developed or integrated in the rest of  the stage direction.

Eduardo Lopez Banzo is clearly a top-flight  baroque conductor, as he has proved on many previous occasions, although almost always in concert versions. His direction was very careful and delicate, as one might expect from him and the fact that the opera offers only a stream of arias and has no Chorus, did help the Mr Lopez Banzo, allowing him to focus his attention on the pit. As usual the Orquestra Comunitat Valenciana showed its tremendous quality and versatility.

Orlando was American countertenor Bejun Mehta, without a doubt one of greatest available, and he  offered a magnificent performance.  If David Daniels is the great virtuoso, Bejun Mehta is outstanding as a character singer, superb in expression and emotion, while at the same time showing that coloratura does present no kind of problem for him. If there was a time when speaking of countertenors meant being limited to Britain, today we have them from many countries and offering top quality. Among all of them though,  I confess my preference for Bejun Mehta both on stage and in concert, because he is such a great artist. I remember his Lieder recital in Madrid a couple of years ago, where he was able to  move  the audience profoundly without any need for pyrotechnics.

Angelica was the Russian soprano Lyubov Petrova, who gave a good performance too, singing with taste, easily enough coloratura and a good stage presence. Her biggest problem perhaps is a certain feeling of monotony due to the poor variety of colours in her voice. Valencia's mezzo soprano Silvia Tro Santafé was perfectly adequate in the trouser role of Medoro, but sadly  also provoked a sense of sameness. The difference in the conception of this role between David Alden and Francisco Negrin is enormous and didn't help Ms Tro Santafé much at all.

Swedish Camilla Tilling made a good Dorinda. She is appealing on stage and she has a voice very well suited to the part, although her final aria was not too wondereul, though once again mostly because of the lack of imagination from the stage director. In general, there was too little vocal  contrast between thesopranos in this production. The Chilean-Italian bass baritone Christian Senn was more baritone than bass as Zoroastro, a part that requires a deeper voice, at least for my taste. He is a good enough singer but  I found him rather miscast.

The full theater offered lots of applause to the whole cast, particularly to Bejun Mehta and  for Dorinda's last Aria.  At the end, it was Mehta's triumph but with warm receptions also for Camilla Tilling, Eduardo Lopez Banzo and the Orchestra.

José M. Irurzun



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