FIRST NIGHT REVIEW

Opera: Partenope at the London Coliseum

This witty, wry masterpiece gets the perfect updating — to a 1920s salon where Dorothy Parker might have swapped barbs with Noël Coward
Partenope tells the tangled tale of a princess with four suitors
Partenope tells the tangled tale of a princess with four suitors
DONALD COOPER/ENO

Puzzles

Challenge yourself with today’s puzzles.

Puzzle thumbnail

Crossword

Puzzle thumbnail

Polygon

Puzzle thumbnail

Sudoku

★★★★☆
It’s not clear why, in 1730, Handel wrote a comedy after nearly 20 years of composing tragic operas, but he made a glorious job of it. Partenope flaunts an inexhaustible supply of vivacious arias, interspersed with darker musings on the ups and downs of love, as it tells the tangled tale of a princess dangling no fewer than four suitors.

Christopher Alden’s 2008 staging for English National Opera hit on the perfect updating for this witty, wry masterpiece — to the sort of 1920s salon in which Dorothy Parker might have swapped barbs with Noël Coward. Andrew Lieberman’s stylish sets look as if they have leapt straight from Vogue covers of the era, and Alden populates them with four socialites, one bumbling Chaplinesque outsider