Cavalli La Calisto La Nuova Musica, Wigmore Hall

At the Wigmore Hall, London an outstanding Cavalli La Calisto, with La Nuova Musica,  La Nuova Musica enliven their work with the same adventurous spirit that one imagines would have motivated 17th century Venetian audiences.  Historically informed performance isn't merely a matter of avoiding vibrato, but of understanding the spirit  of the times. Venice in 1651 was an exciting place, the go-ahead centre of the Mediterranean world.  Opera itself was a "new" art, still evolving, and Venetian audiences were very sophisticated.  La Nuova Musica's La Calisto was vibrant with energetic verve a tightly-focussed performance, where the filigree intricacies could shine.  

La Calisto is mythological allegory, but the characters are defined with dramatic flair.  Calisto (Lucy Crowe) is a beautiful nymph, a handmaiden of Diana, (Jurgita Adamontyé) whose acolytes are sworn to virginity.  Giove, (George Humphreys)  tries to seduce her to no avail, until he disguises himself as Diana.  Calisto, having tasted lust, can't understand why the "real" Diana despises sex.  Everyone else is trying to seduce Diana, with no luck. Although the reason might be obvious to us now, I don't think we can rule out the possibility that the ancient Greeks didn't know, given their tolerance for same sex relationships.  Chances are, the point wasn't lost either on 17th century Venetians. . Like Cavalli's other operas, (Please read my piece Crazier than Jason, Cavalli's Elena)  gender bending and illicit love gave audiences a naughty frisson. Calisto talks about "Diana's kisses" to an older woman, played by a man  Endymione (Tim Mead) a counter tenor. manages to seduce the asexual Diana  For this, she's maligned for being fickle !  Giove as the fake Diana, learns from Endymione that Diana isn't as pure as he thought. Giove as Diana tries to seduce Calisto again but his wife Giunone (Rachel Kelly) won't have any fooling around and turns Calisto into a bear.

La Nuova Musica, conducted by David Bates, had perhaps the finest specialist cast in this country,  thus,wisely concentrated focus on the performance, not the staging. Thus we could enjoy detail, like the way different voices came together at the end of a line, hovering together before falling silent. We could also focus on the variety of musical invention, sometimes sublime and at other times, deliberately grotesque  I love the dance sequences. You could luxuriate in the sheer beauty of the singing and playing, delighting in details like the flourish of a harpsichord, seemingly wayward but very much integrated into the ensemble : the joker in the pack, perhaps, for La Calisto is funny: serious ideas tackled with irreverent wit. Listen here on BBC Radio 3 for approx 30 days.
Please also see my piece oin La Nuova Musicas's Cesti Orontea at the Wigmore Hall

Cavalli operas seem to need high standards. Although La Calisto is almost mainstream these days, I don't think anything but the idiomatic best does them justice.  There is a wonderful DVD  with René Jacobs  and Concerto Vocale, recorded at La Monnaie in March 1996. . Staging was by Herbert Wernicke, demonized by anti-moderns, but it's brilliant. The stage is small and claustrophobic, like the enclosed world of the gods. But the characters look out on stars, and rise up into the rafters borne aloft by pulleys.  Stars and spangles all over the costumes too : the image of "night" illuminated by wonder. 

Cavalli headlines Glyndebourne 2017

Really exciting news!  The 2017 Glyndebourne Festival will open with the UK’s first ever production of Cavalli’s Hipermestra, READ MY REVIEW HERE, directed by Graham Vick and conducted by baroque specialist William Christie.  Cavalli is perfect for Glyndebourne - witty, irreverent and audacious, ideal for a house like Glyndebourne which does baroque better than most.  There have been so many celebrated productions of Cavalli in recent years - La Didione, Eliogabalo, La Calisto and my particular favourite Il Giasone, for starters - that we shouldn't settle for anything but the finest standards.  But anything William Christie does will be better than practically anyone else can do.

Christie is conducting the lively Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in a new edition of the opera.  Graham Vick directs his first new production for Glyndebourne in 17 years. Hungarian soprano Emöke Baráth makes her UK debut in the title role. She's a period specialist and was a wonderful  Elena in Aix en Provence in 2013. (Read my review here)  That's her in a blonde wig as Elena.

Hipermestra was one of fifty sisters, the Daniades, who are forced to marry their fifty first cousins but all kill their husbands on their wedding nights except for Hipermestra, who doesn't do sex. Lucia di Lammermoor is timid in comparison. Cavalli does sex, riotously. Be warned. Expect a lot of sopranos, altos, tenors and exuberant mayhem.

Conductor William Christie says: “It was almost 50 years ago that Glyndebourne first introduced Francesco Cavalli, a completely forgotten composer, with two of his works, L’Ormindo and La Calisto. The effect on the opera world was nothing short of extraordinary.  These works established Cavalli as a great composer of opera and reaffirmed Glyndebourne’s role as a place of discovery....Times have changed and I am proud to be part of a new Cavalli wave, more in keeping with the historical performance school that is doing so much to continue the evolution of early music."

Also in 2017, a new production of  Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito, which will mark the Glyndebourne debut of the prominent German director Claus Guth, a frequent guest at top European houses including Bayreuth, the Salzburg Festival, Theater an der Wien and La Scala. Glyndebourne's Music Director Robin Ticciati will conduct the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment for only the second ever staging of the opera at Glyndebourne. The distinguished Australian lyric tenor Steve Davislim makes his Glyndebourne debut in the title role alongside British lyric mezzo-soprano Alice Coote (Vitellia),

A world premiere: Hamlet by exceedingly prolific Brett Dean, directed by Neil Armfield, who directed Dean's first opera in 2010. Among the revivals La Traviata from 2014 and Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos from  2013.  Read my review of that HERE.  Hopefully this time round there will be more comprehension of this very thoughtful production. Like so much Richard Strauss, the opera is about the making of opera. It's art, not literal narrative, so an intellectual approach is perfectly valid even if it's highbrow. When Katharina Thoma directed Un ballo in maschera at the Royal Opera House, she did the exact opposite, staging the opera as literally as possible in the "traditional" style complete with painted wooden flats. But audiences still didn't get the irony.  Read my analysis of it here.  At the time, someone muttered "We British don't like Germans". Too bad, I think.  Germans do know a lot about theatre.

L'Ormindo Cavalli at the Globe

Sue Loder reviews Cavalli L'Ormindo at Shakespeare's Globe for Opera Today  

"Hurrah for the Royal Opera’s latest and most innovative Baroque production. Inside this gorgeous gem of a theatre, the Shakespeare’s Globe’s new indoor space known as the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Kasper Holten and his team have created a mini masterpiece of baroque performance with Cavalli’s L’Ormindo.Aided and abetted by a superb team of young singers and Christian Curnyn’s top-of-the range period musicians"

Read the whole rave HERE. 
photo: Alastair Muir

Crazier than Jason, Cavalli Elena

Franscesco Cavalli's Jason (Giasone 1649) is making the circuit with the English Touring Opera this season. Cavalli is hardly unknown : The Royal Opera House did his La Calisto (1651) as recently as  2008 and William Christie did La Didone (1641) at the Champs Elysées in 2012. Cavalli used the conventions of Classical Antiquity but reinvented them with audacious exuberance, in keeping with the sophistication of his era. Baroque tastes were irrepressible, not at all "Victorian values". erhaps now we're ready for Cavalli again.

Cavalli's Elena (Il rapimento d'Helena, the Abduction of Helena 1659) was performed this July at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Exceptionally wonderful performance : watch it while it's still available on arte.tv. There are  13 principal parts, many en travesti, some appearing in dual roles, but don't get bogged down in the convoluted plot. Enjoy the sheer earthy energy of the music.Belly laughs are built into this score, inventive flourishes underpinned by gutsy orchestration. Leonardo García Alarcón and Cappella Mediterannea prove that period instruments can pack a powerful punch.

A spectacular prologue sets the mood. Three graces in costumes referring to the baroque's fascination with the exotic surround Iro, the jester. Outstanding performance by Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, whose range is so high he can sing countertenor with ease, dropping his voice to the gutsiest depths to emphasize the more salacious aspects of the part. But watch his acting - part ingenue, part knowing roué. He's  unique. I'll be following his career. When Neptune (Scott Conner) appears, Iro and the graces become "waves", in his wake : beautifully languid lines to sing and play. Neptune reminds us that, disguised as a swan, the God raped Elena's mother. The maiden who will eventually become Helen of troy has lust and deception in her genes. It's no surprise then that Menelao Valer Barna-Sabadus dresses as a girl, he's so convincing that men want to seduce him. He's a wonderful singer. When he and  Emöke Barath (Elena) duet, the interplay between their voices is utterly exquisite  There's frisson of innuendo, but the vocal qualities are so pure that you focus on the beauty of the music.

All round excellence in the singing, shoiwing what a good ear Cavalli had for blending different types of voices in similar fachs. Fernando Guimaeres's Teseo was rich and dark, and Solenn Lavanant Linke's Ippolye/.Pallade was womanly, but demented. This meeting between Theseus and Hippolyte is deliciously mad, though the voices balance perfectly.  There are several mezzo trouser roles, some also in duet, which display the range to great effect. Big guys have fun too. Brendan Touhy  sings Diomede and Creonte, he gets to cross dress and prance semi naked but its the poise of his singing you remember - a real character tenor a rarer type than you'd expect, who can act with a voice steady throughout the range. Elena and Menelao in dresses, Teseo and Ippolyte in pants, declare their love, watched by Castor and Pollux, sing a beautiful quartet, garlanded by sweet toned woodwinds. But do they live happily ever after ? Elena (Helen) ends up in Troy, but that's another story.

This Cavalli Elena is a delight, especially for those who enjoy what high, clear voices can express. These singers are so confident that they can play around with technique when it enhances humour. Utterly brilliant.  Don't miss the battle scene (around the 2 hour mark), which is hilarious ! As the Financial Times critic said, Cavalli's Elena was the "Some Like in Hot" of its time.