Opera Reviews
29 March 2024
Untitled Document

Monteverdi takes centre stage at the Edinburgh International Festival



by Catriona Graham
Monteverdi: L'Orfeo
Edinburgh International Festival
August 2017

Edinburgh International Festival’s opera programme is developing into a textbook on the various ways to present opera, with John Eliot Gardner’s staging of three Monteverdi operas in the Usher Hall a further example.

He positioned his instrumentalists in two blocks – melody to the left, continuo to the right – with the space between for the singers. The singers also used the organ gallery and the front of the stage.

L’Orfeo opened with a toccata in the organ gallery and the singers processed on, nymphs in Grecian-style dresses with flower wreaths on their heads, shepherds wearing jerkins or sashes.

Slight and elfin Hana Blažíková sang La Musica, accompanying herself on a small harp. One feared whether her voice would carry to the back of the hall. She returned as Eurydice, the same sweet voice, but stronger.

The solos and ensembles of Ninfa (Anna Dennis) and the Pastores – Francisco Fernández-Rueda, Gareth Treseder, John Taylor Ward and Michał Czerniawski – were excellently sung, Dennis apparently relishing the vowels. We had been warned before the start that Krystian Adam was suffering from a throat infection, but there was little evidence of it in his performance as Orfeo. In Act 2, singing with joy, he possessed the stage like a Thracian rock-star, complete with backing band and vocalists. The atmosphere changed, however, with the entry of Messaggera (Lucile Richardot) with the news of Eurydice’s death from a snake-bite.

Orfeo’s decision to seek her in the Underworld brings one of the best moments in the performance. The ferryman Caronte’s shockingly bass voice explodes into what has hitherto been a soundscape of high voices. As Orfeo tries to persuade him to carry him across the river, Gianluca Buratto prowls suspiciously round the instrumentalists. The harp had a delicious bell-like tone as Orfeo’s song lulled Caronte to sleep. Francesca Boncompagni’s voice (Proserpina) sounded as clear as a mountain stream, a good contrast to Buratto’s Pluto. 

Having failed to do what he was told by Pluto, and turned round to check Eurydice was following him, Orfeo lamented his return to Thrace – the Echo song, with Gareth Treseder providing the echo, was delicately done and there was restraint in Krystian Adam’s emoting. Apollo, however, appeared (Furio Zanasi) to give the grieving Orfeo a rather bracing ‘pull yourself together’ pep talk before bearing him off to heaven.

The playing of the English Baroque Soloists was luscious – some nice recorder passages, the immediacy of the sackbuts and cornettos contrasting with languid strings, and jolly dances.

Text © Catriona Graham

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