Handel’s Orlando is one of three pieces that carry the theme of ‘madness’ for the Welsh National Opera’s autumn season. The others are Bellini’s I Puritani and Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.
Director Harry Fehr’s highly stylised production is set in an art deco hospital in wartime London during the Blitz. Yannis Thavoris’s elegant design comprises a stark hospital ward with iron-legged beds and long horizontal windows in metal frames that double later for back projection screens. The stage revolves to reveal the hospital exterior and reception area.
Fehr has painted Orlando as a senior officer in the RAF, given to outbreaks of sudden violent behaviour – a man seized and eventually overcome with hallucinatory dementia inflamed by the realisation that the woman he loves has left him for another man. That other man is the soldier Medoro, also in hospital to recover, but from physical wounds, not a mental condition.
Both men are cared for by Dorinda, a nurse who has become attracted to Medoro, but who soon realises that he has been won over by Angelica, a visiting American society hostess, who is also the very object of Orlando’s desires and ravings. The proceedings are closely followed by the hospital consultant Zoroastro, something of a mad professor type played by bass baritone Daniel Grice, who seeks to cure Orlando and return him to battle. “Love prepares only oblivion for you, only war will crown your name.”
The daunting task of portraying a man in mental meltdown while singing an early 18th century libretto in Italian is more than adequately covered by countertenor Lawrence Zazzo. Zazzo brings a full range of facial grimaces, physical ticks, wild-eyed and defeated facial expressions to his role as Orlando. Angelica, the woman he desires so tortuously, is triumphantly played by soprano Rebecca Evans – the resonance in her voice seemed to grip the very fabric of the building through the evening in a wonderful performance. No less excellent was Fflur Wyn’s Dorinda in a performance that grew in strength as the piece developed, deliciously so in the aria: “When you sing of your woes, amorous nightingale, you seem to match your warbling to my sadness.” Counter tenor James Laing, singing the part of Medoro for just this one night, brought enormous sympathy to the role, especially in the beautiful passages of “farewell fields, farewell springs, trees, forever.”
Interesting that in considering the power of love behind madness the business of war should be considered an honourable state. And there have to be concerns that the electric shock therapy administered to Orlando at the behest of Zoroastro should so conveniently seem to be the cure-all in this version of the tale. What a cosy conclusion the libretto gives us at the end of the story. One minute knives are being brandished, the next we’re all in a smiling 1940s-style selfy! Oh well, I suppose we’ll just have to go on suspending our disbelief.
While some of the projected video and projection added some 21st century zest to the austere 1940’s set, and provided evidence of Blitz mayhem beyond the hospital walls, as well as illustrating the synapse-stuttering nature of Orlando’s mind, it occasionally felt a little repetitive and extra to requirements.
Throughout there was excellent and sensitive playing by the WNO orchestra conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini. In particular there were lovely passages of solo cello during Angelica’s aria: “As long as doubt reigns in my heart, Love will never survive.”
As can be expected of the WNO, this was another very high quality production showing bold interpretation and delivery. ★★★★☆ Simon Bishop 22nd October 2015
