Bajazet has its Royal Opera House debut after nearly 300 years

It cannot be said that there has been a rush to put Vivaldi’s operas before a London audience. Nearly 300 years after its premiere in Verona, Bajazet has arrived courtesy of Irish National Opera, a co-production with the Royal Opera in partnership with Irish Baroque Orchestra, and it is the first Vivaldi opera ever to be seen within the walls of the Royal Opera House.

Terminology is important here, as the opera was not actually composed in full by Vivaldi. It is what is termed a pasticcio, a common form of operatic entertainment in the 18th century, in which many hands were involved. For Bajazet, Vivaldi rustled up some existing arias of his own together with others by Broschi, Giacomelli and Hasse, and wrapped them in a fresh narrative. Sometimes he changed the words to fit the new story; sometimes he didn’t bother.

It may seem an odd idea to us today, but audiences at the time loved them. The challenge is to create a coherent dramatic entity out of the cobbled-together parts and director Adele Thomas has pushed the testosterone level up to maximum in her take on Bajazet, homing in on rampant machismo in war-torn central Asia in the 14th century.

The relationship between Bajazet, already in chains when the curtain goes up, and his conqueror Tamerlano, portrayed as a sexually rapacious psychopath, becomes one of non-stop aggression. Both singers, Gianluca Margheri’s muscular baritone Bajazet and James Laing’s highly wrought countertenor Tamerlano, enter into the spirit with macho singing, though that does get wearing after a while.

None of the cast escapes what Thomas calls the “near hysterical state of living trauma”. Mezzo Niamh O’Sullivan comes closest with her deeply felt singing of Asteria’s calmer arias (Vivaldi’s own). Aoife Miskelly and Eric Jurenas offer decent support on Tamerlano’s side of the argument, though he is pushed too far in his last aria, which veers off the rails.

Then, long after the rest of the cast have settled in, jealous love interest Irene makes an entrance not to be forgotten. Detonating a fireball of outraged fury, laced with wild vocal leaps and ferocious semiquavers, Claire Booth let fly with the kind of performance that Joan Collins might have envied if Dynasty had been set to music. How did she know where she was going in this vast, shapeless aria? Some of her singing sounded hard-pressed, but that must surely be par for the course.

Performances of Bajazet run until February 12, so this is Baroque week at the Royal Opera. Forced to choose between the Vivaldi and Handel’s awe-inspiring Theodora in Katie Mitchell’s controversial production upstairs, there is no doubt where hard-won cash should be spent. Even so, this production never loosens its grip and conductor Peter Whelan, some irritatingly busy continuo work apart, keeps his small band well up to speed. Vivaldi and Co do not come off too badly.

★★★★☆

To February 12, roh.org.uk