Orlando furioso d'Antonio Vivaldi

Four and a half years ago, this reviewer wasn't that familiar with Vivaldi's operas, despite being a huge opera enthusiast and having played cello parts for several of Vivaldi's concertos and sung the 'Gloria' several times.

'Orlando Furioso' was my first Vivaldi opera, via the wonderful Marilyn Horne production (which is the superior performance of the opera, and is likely to be the preference of most opera fans seeing both productions), and having listened to a few more of his operas there came the realisation of how much I'd missed out by being introduced to his operas so late. While none of them are among my favourite operas, Vivaldi's operas do deserve to be better known, and 'Orlando Furioso' in particular is one of the better examples of Baroque opera there is.

With this 2011 production, while the 1990 Marilyn Horne performance is superior, despite having some things that could have been executed better this was often a very impressive performance.

Visually, mostly the production is good. The sets are beautifully designed and there are some very striking images and designs, while the production is very atmospherically lit (the "gloominess" that put some people off wasn't that much of a distraction). Where this 'Orlando Furioso' is less good is in the costumes, which are quite ugly and overbearing. Particularly egregious was the incredibly weird look for Orlando, the Baba-the-Turk-like look looks so out of place within the production and has no real business in any opera production other than a production of 'The Rake's Progress' (where Baba the Turk comes from), Marie-Nicole Lemieux deserves nothing but praise for showing tremendous dignity and not letting any embarrassment show.

Pierre Audi's has never been bolder in his stage directing than here, and on the most part he makes the story compelling, intense and moving, nothing's static, dull, grotesque or distasteful. The last act is an unfortunate let-down however, where Audi adopts a very Avant-Garde and experimental style to the staging and the act suffers from trying to do too much and too much of it was unclear and irrelevant, which does bog down the pacing, affects the clarity of the drama and storytelling and never really serves the music.

Mostly, the production is well served on the DVD. It is expansively and intimately video-directed and the picture is clear, steady and never comes over as too bright or too dark. The extremely compressed, and therefore flat, sound quality disappoints though, and if it were better recorded and balanced the music could have been enjoyed even more.

Because musically the production is where the production really excels, the highlights (Alcina and Orlando's arias and duets) being knockouts. The orchestra give a very spirited and nuanced reading, the chorus sing with beautiful tone and dramatic engagement and Jean-Christophe Spinosi's expertise in Vivaldi shines through loud and clear, so stylish, energetic yet sympathetic is his conducting.

The singing and the acting is near blameless, with the only reservation being the occasional lack of smooth evenness in Verónica Cangemi's vocal production as Angelica (who is otherwise radiant). Phillippe Jaroussky is on splendid form, but even better are Jennifer Larmore's ravishing Alcina, and particularly Marie-Nicole Lemieux as a gravely dignified Orlando.

Overall, often very impressive (with hardly anything at all negative to say musically) if flawed (in the costumes, staging of the last act and the sound quality). 7/10 Bethany Cox