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Critic's Notebook

Review: Exploring Captivity in Handel’s ‘Alcina’ and Mozart’s ‘Entführung’ at Aix-en-Provence Festival

The set of “Alcina” at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France. The production, directed by Katie Mitchell, seeks to combine Handel’s 18th-century opera with a 21st-century style.Credit...Boris Horvat/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France — Two new opera productions at the Aix-en-Provence Festival this summer — Handel’s “Alcina,” directed by Katie Mitchell, and Mozart’s “Die Entführung aus dem Serail” (“The Abduction From the Seraglio”), staged by Martin Kusej — appeared similar in prospect. Each was to offer an 18th-century work in a distinctly 21st-century style, with captivity as a theme.

Indeed, both presentations proved antiquarian musically, in performances anchored by the excellent period-instrument Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, and more or less progressive theatrically, with settings and stage action updated to the modern era.

In “Alcina,” which is steeped in the supernatural to begin with, the mere fact of updating seems harmless enough in principle, though it may make the whole issue of sorcery even less credible. But the new “Entführung” raises more serious questions, suggesting that updating can do more than add relevancy or titillation. In some cases, it may be considered gratuitously provocative.

Mozart set his opera in Turkey. Pasha Selim has imprisoned Konstanze in his harem, where she and her servants, Blonde and Pedrillo, are overseen by the malevolent and lascivious Osmin until Belmonte, Konstanze’s fiancé, comes to their rescue.

Mr. Kusej resets the opera in the 1920s, when, a program insert says, “the first conflicts began disturbing the Middle East, sowing the seeds of hatred and humiliation, whose terrible consequences can be seen today.” There is much talk of beheadings in the rewritten dialogue (rich with expletives and inexplicably alternating between German and English), and there were vivid images of beheadings during rehearsals in June, before a terrorist bombing and actual beheading took place in nearby Lyon late that month.

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From left, Tobias Moretti, David Portillo, Jane Archibald and Daniel Behle in “Die Entführung aus dem Serail.”Credit...Pascal Victor

At the urging of Bernard Foccroulle, the general manager of the Aix festival and author of that insert note, Mr. Kusej toned down the images. In particular, the offering Osmin throws at the pasha’s feet at the very end of the opera — pretty thoroughly undercutting Mozart’s happy ending — now consists of bloody clothing, not four heads.

Still, all that talk and many brutal images remain (with four surrogate watermelons sliced and diced in the final scene), as seen in the fifth of seven performances at the open-air Théâtre de l’Archevêché on Monday night.

Mr. Foccroulle said in an interview on Tuesday morning that he disagreed with Mr. Kusej’s vision of the Orient as dark and archaic, set up against the enlightened West. “He presents Selim as a person who loves poetry and philosophy, showing him as a European,” Mr. Foccroulle added.

But he said he relished the discussion and the different interpretations. “It is good to have a debate about how art should tell us about the present world,” he said.

Nonetheless, the performance on Monday was booed long and lustily at the end. That the hoots were aimed at the production was made clear by the loud cheers for the performers in their curtain calls.

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Anna Prohaska, left, as Morgana and Patricia Petibon as the title character in Handel’s “Alcina” at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in France.Credit...Patrick Berger

Booing is not the most efficient way to express displeasure, and it was unclear whether the objections were to the deletion of the bouncing severed heads or to the production as a whole. But the evening’s worst sin may have been dullness. One obviously experienced operagoer, overheard in conversation, probably spoke for many when he said, “It was too boring to be bad and too bad to be boring.”

The stage was covered with desert sand, the lone sets being a large tent through the first two acts and a big campfire waiting to be lighted in the second. As night fell in that second act, you could barely tell the characters apart.

(It had been announced beforehand that, because of technical difficulties, the campfire would not be lighted. The fire “changes everything,” Mr. Foccroulle said. But was no adjustment to the rest of the lighting possible?)

The singers, seemingly left to their own devices by Mr. Kusej, tried gamely at times to bring the show to life. Most gratifying was Franz-Josef Selig’s strong portrayal of Osmin, a character too often presented as a simpering weasel in blackface. This Osmin, projecting power, was scary.

The two sopranos, Jane Archibald as Konstanze and Rachele Gilmore as Blonde, were effective in their vocal acrobatics, though not always distinctive of tone. The two tenor roles offer fewer opportunities, but Daniel Behle brought vocal beauty to Belmonte, and David Portillo was especially fine in Pedrillo’s song in the desert. (Further to the severed-head theme, Mr. Portillo also furnished the evening’s most memorable image when he was buried to his neck in sand in the first act.)

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Patricia Petibon as Alcina and Anthony Gregory as Oronte in “Alcina.”Credit...Patrick Berger

Tobias Moretti, an Austrian actor, played the spoken role of Selim with utter seriousness. Jérémie Rhorer conducted the Freiburg orchestra with energy at the start but then seemed to settle into the general lethargy.

Andrea Marcon drew more vital playing from the Freiburg orchestra in “Alcina.” That production, heard on Sunday evening at the indoor Grand Théâtre de Provence, was excellent musically, top to bottom.

The incomparable countertenor Philippe Jaroussky was thrilling of voice, if a little wooden of gesture, as Ruggiero, the sorceress Alcina’s plaything-turned-antagonist. But it was the women who stood out here. The soprano Patricia Petibon was little short of sensational vocally as the antiheroine and excellent at eliciting sympathy through her acting.

Lesser characters were also superbly served by Anna Prohaska, a soprano, as the enchantress Morgana; Katarina Bradic, a mezzo-soprano, as Bradamante, Ruggiero’s rightful lover; Anthony Gregory, a tenor, as Oronte, Morgana’s suitor; and Krzysztof Baczyk as Melisso, Ruggiero’s former tutor and now Bradamante’s second. Elias Mädler, a boy soprano, was also terrific.

Ms. Mitchell’s production, though hugely elaborate and confusing at the start, settled into a nice groove and was almost lovable by the end. It involves a huge sorcery machine for turning people into animals (or whatever). And Ms. Mitchell works magic of her own onstage, constantly showing the enchantresses Alcina and Morgana alternating between glamorous public personas and their “real life,” older, private selves.

There are also bits of simulated sex, mingling genders and suggesting, among other things, inventive new ways to hit high notes.

The Aix-en-Provence Festival runs through July 21; festival-aix.com.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Characters Bewitched and Bothered. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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