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Tim Hopkins and his colleague Nicholas Ridout decided to rewrite the piece extensively too, the first indication of that being the appearance before the curtain of a figure Mozart culpably omitted from his opera, the Mute, a spoken part, garrulous — a laugh there, of course — telling us what we don’t want to know and threading her way through the action alternately as a Western tour-guide and as an Eastern of indeterminate function. Hopkins wants us to be clearer than we would otherwise be that this is about Orientalism, and Edward Said’s eponymous, exploded book on the subject is quoted in the programme. So the Pasha, whose ‘tragicall history’ this is, is a depressed gentleman who, as played by Martin Hyder, seems to be closely modelled on Michael Caine’s part in Hannah and her Sisters. In love with Constanze, he remains the soul of lugubrious courtesy throughout, so that when she rounds on him with Mozart’s hugest, most boring aria, ‘Martern aller Arten’, he looks as bewildered as the audience feels, since he hasn’t threatened anything, so her interminable list of ways she will defy him is superfluous. All the more odd, since Hopkins has decided to add interest by having Constanze nearly falling in love with him, though this new twist fizzles out very soon, and should never have fizzled in.
Primarily one goes to Seraglio, of course, for the musical riches which it contains, though not consistently. This cast is not quite up to compensating for the inadequacies and longueurs of the action. Clive Bayley is a fine artist, but his voice isn’t rich enough, especially in its lowest register, to do justice to Osmin’s comic and alarming viciousness. Mozart wrote music for his hero Belmonte which comes close to being sentimental, and Joshua Ellicott, rather than injecting some virility into the part, made it even more lachrymose. Kate Valentine’s pluck was to be admired in taking on the fearsome role of Constanze, but more for effort than achievement: her voice was pinched and overstretched in her arias. The two subsidiary lovers are adequate. But Rory Macdonald’s conducting slightly disappointed me, needing both more brio and more pathos. This was something of an end-of-term effort.
The Royal Opera is ending its season with a series of revivals of its 19th-century Italian repertoire. The latest is Un Ballo in Maschera, in Mario Martone’s production, with set designs by Sergio Tramonti. They haven’t left the revival director Daniel Dooner an enviable task. The sets are ugly, strangely irrelevant to the action for the most part, and again hard for the singers to negotiate while retaining their dignity. At least there is no nonsense about relocating the work to Sweden; this seems to be North America in the civil war period, though with Il Conte Riccardo (called the Governor in the programme). The plot is absurd enough for that hardly to matter, but beneath the absurdity lies Verdi’s subtlest melodrama, with a central figure who has near-tragic status partly because of his insouciance.
This gayest tenor role of Verdi’s was wonderfully sung by Ramón Vargas, equally convincing in his merry diversions and his irresistible passion for Amelia. That superb role was undertaken with mixed results by the Chilean Angela Marambio. She has temperament and force, but lacks the long line, and in her top notes is unacceptably, painfully shrill. Like the other singers, she was left by the revival director to make her own way over the debris which constitutes the scenery of Act II — which was 33 minutes of music surrounded by a full hour of intervals. Dalibor Jenis is a noble, moving Renato, though with a muffle in his voice. Elena Manistina is alternately awe-provoking and inadequate as Ulrica, and Anna Christy makes the most winning Oscar I have seen for a long time. If only the hard-working Maurizio Benini would offer the singers, as well as secure accompaniment, inspiration and leadership, even this mediocre production could, with this cast, be enthralling.
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