Lisette Oropesa brings star power to Alcina at the Royal Opera House — review

For the past few years the Royal Opera has been putting on a new production of a Handel opera each season. The idea is to reconnect the company with a composer who had some of his finest operas first performed at the Covent Garden Theatre, a predecessor of the Royal Opera House.

Alcina was given its premiere there in 1735, making it an obvious choice for inclusion. This was the last of Handel’s operas on magical themes, even more of a success these days than it was originally, with many productions worldwide including at Glyndebourne this summer.

That production turned the sorceress Alcina into a glitzy nightclub singer, ensuring oodles of glamour at the price of a new narrative that made next-to-no sense. Richard Jones’s Royal Opera production offers greater clarity, but is equally hit-and-miss.

It opens with Alcina infiltrating a pure-living, religious community similar to the Amish and bewitching the younger members to follow her. Once in her magical domain, they are turned into a menagerie of animal forms, including a lion, a parrot and a forlorn-looking King Charles spaniel. One spray of a magical perfume called “Alcina” transforms any other troublesome humans that come her way.

Aside from playing up the opera’s moral framework, Jones strikes a balance between sending up its convoluted web of love affairs and taking the deeper emotions seriously. Unfortunately, too much of what follows feels as if it is marking time. The stage picture is restlessly fussy, with bits of scenery constantly being trundled on and off while unwanted stage business and halfhearted dance routines fill out vacant arias.

To meet the commercial pressures of Handel’s time, the opera’s success was predicated on the selling-power of famous singers. American soprano Lisette Oropesa delivers the star quality here as Alcina, conjuring an insouciant sense of superiority for the glittering enchantress, and singing with a high-class, diamantine soprano that never loses its quality. The intensity of her later arias comes across at white heat.

Some Alcinas purloin the showpiece “Tornami a vagheggiar”, but this production keeps it the province of Morgana, sung by Mary Bevan without ideal purity, especially at the top of the voice, touching though she is elsewhere. The other world-class voice is Emily D’Angelo’s firm, bronzed mezzo. If her words had more clarity and life to them, the slow arias would not sound so samey, but she brings off her last heroic display of virtuosity handsomely.

Varduhi Abrahamyan is heard best in Bradamante’s nimble arias and Rupert Charlesworth is a lively presence as Oronte, portrayed as Alcina’s gardener, who snatches a quick fling with Morgana in the greenhouse. José Coca Loza makes limited impact as Atlante/Melisso. The boy Oberto gets more of his music than usual, and young Malakai M Bayoh won cheers from the audience after they became incensed by a single boor who booed loudly. Christian Curnyn conducts with good sense, but the performance takes a long time to light a spark.

In the final minutes, Jones produces a brilliant twist to his moral lesson — no spoilers — that upends all expectations. It almost makes the whole evening worthwhile.

★★★☆☆

To November 26, roh.org.uk