L’Incoronazione Di Dario

Vivaldi - British premiere.
Garsington Opera, various dates, 4th June to 5th July.

June 4, 2008
I was very excited about this, as last night was the first time this opera by (Four Seasons) Vivaldi had ever been performed in our own dear country. I had never been to a baroque opera before and L’Incoronazione di Dario is indeed very different from the 19th century classics we all know and love. It has lots of very short scenes, brief dramatic encounters of two or three characters, recitativo followed by a brief aria-let. It doesn’t have the exciting, hummable show-tunes of Bizet, or the heart-stopping orchestral grandeur of Wagner, or the great, barn-storming arias of Puccini, or the stunningly beautiful choral harmonies of Verdi; the whole thing is more scaled down, more intimate, like chamber music with songs. The orchestra itself, here carefully and lovingly reproducing what was playing in the Teatro Sant’Angelo in Venice in 1717, is utterly different – I sometimes think the eighteenth century is in some ways more alien, more foreign to us now than the middle ages – the dominant sound is the tinkling of the harpsichord, backed up by such exotic creatures as viola da gambas and theorbos. So you really have to think yourself out of your usual expectations and open yourself up to a really new experience.

Then, what you get is a rather delicious comedy, beautifully staged and engagingly performed. It isn’t going to overwhelm your senses or make you burst into tears, but if you can stand a great deal of coloratura, you will be pleased and entertained. I know people say that Opera at Garsington isn’t really about the opera, but about the whole experience of wandering about those exquisitely beautiful gardens in your posh frock, sipping champagne as the sun goes down over one of the most perfect vistas of English countryside you could ever wish to be standing on a hill looking down on, but actually it is about the opera, if you are proposing to sit through three and a half hours of it. Dario is really a drawing room romantic comedy in the great eighteenth century tradition (who is going to marry whom), though ostensibly set in a palace several hundred years BC. There are three young men – Dario, the hero, and his rivals for the throne of Persia, Oronte and Arpago. There are three young ladies – Statira, eldest daughter of recently deceased king Ciro, her younger sister Argene, and Alinda, princess of the Medes. There’s the scheming older tutor to the princesses, Niceno, and the reliable confidential maid, Flora. The rivals to the throne all wish to validate their claim by marrying Statira, and are all claiming to be violently in love with her. Statira is the female 18th century equivalent of Harry Enfield’s Tim Nice-But-Dim, a very good-natured girl but definitely a few slices short of a cucumber sandwich. Argene, on the other hand, is very clever, and very fed up that her stupid sister is going to get the man and the throne that she wants for herself. Argene falls in love with Dario on first meeting him, and when Dario (who is also a bit of a chump) asks for her help in winning Statira’s affections, she is perfectly placed to orchestrate the mayhem that follows, during which Statira contrives to get herself betrothed to all three suitors, while Alinda pursues Oronte, who has jilted her to chase after Statira, with delightful comic results.

It’s a Garsington tradition to foster new talent, which in this case means that we are presented with young and very beautiful singers in all the female roles: Renata Pokupic as Statira, Wendy Dawn Thompson as Argene, Sophie Bevan as Alinda, Antonia Sotgiu as Flora, and Katherine Manley as the swaggering military hero Arpago (both Arpago and Oronte were originally sung by castrati). Wendy Dawn Thompson in particular was outstanding and a very accomplished actress, transforming in the course of the opera from a naïve and passionate teenager just beginning to get to grips with her powers and desires, into an arch-manipulator quite capable of sending her sister into the forest to be eaten by bears and seizing her throne. Sophie Bevan was a wonderfully feisty Alinda, so passionately divided between getting her man back, and punishing him for leaving her, that at one point she actually knocks him unconscious by beating his head on the scenery. She also had one of the best arias, the achingly wistful Io son quel augeletto (I am like a little bird).

Director David Freeman is well-known for his fondness for staging operas in modern dress, so we first see Statira and Argene in nightie and jim-jams, clutching teddies. The modern dress in question is c. 1960 for the girls, though not particularly for the men – Dario (Paul Nilon) has the most wonderful full-length black leather coat, which on its own would make any girl want to marry the wearer, while the people’s favourite Oronte (Nicholas Watts) is dressed as a very sparkly, ostentatious playboy with big trousers, and Arpago in fetching military uniform. Throughout the opera the sisters’ costumes become more dressy, more queenly, until in the final scene they confront each other as adult rivals, glittering with jewels and passion.

Garsington provides opera-goers with a beautifully produced programme, packed with meaty information on all three operas staged this season, and they also give you a copy of their new libretto in both Italian and English, which I call handsome. I don’t suppose for a minute that there are any tickets left, but opera-lovers and seekers of new musical experience should definitely call and see.

PS. Do not wear high heels!
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