Handel’s Tamerlano reinvented at London Handel Pageant

Handel: Tamerlano – James Laing – London Handel Pageant (Picture: Craig Fuller)

Handel: Tamerlano: James Laing, Benjamin Hulett, Nardus Williams, Jake Ingbar, Kitty Whately, director: Orpha Phelan, Academy of Historic Music, conductor: Laurence Cummings; London Handel Pageant at Shoreditch City Corridor
Reviewed 27 March 2027

Excellent particular person performances and a few revolutionary design can’t fairly elevate a manufacturing that seeks to reinvent opera seria, fortunately we got here away having loved a night of world class Handel singing

The London Handel Pageant‘s staged opera providing this 12 months was one of many composer’s nice Italian operas, one thing of a change from the previous few years when the pageant has extra explored the fringes of the Handel’s dramatic artwork. However Orpha Phelan’s staging of Tamerlano was something however conventional, utilizing the nice corridor at Shoreditch City Corridor as a discovered house with the viewers on three sides of the motion and performing the work in English with surtitles. In her article within the programme e book, Phelan appeared to specific doubts in regards to the opera or at the least she didn’t fairly perceive the shape. This was a manufacturing that sought to reinvent a critical opera seria.

We caught the second of three performances on Friday 27 March 2026. Handel’s Tamerlano was carried out by Laurence Cummings with the Academy of Historic Music. Orpha Phelan directed with designs by Madeleine Boyd and lighting by Matt Haskins. James Laing was Tamerlano (a job we heard him sing with Cambridge Handel Opera in 2022, see my evaluation). Benjamin Hulett was Bajazet (having impressed as Vitaliano in Handel’s Giustino at Covent Backyard final 12 months, see my evaluation). Nardus Williams was Asteria and Jake Ingbar was Andronico (each singers had been in Handel’s Partenope at ENO this 12 months, see my evaluation). Kitty Whately was Irene, and Jonathan Brown was Leone. The opera was sung in an uncredited English translation.

Handel: Tamerlano – Benjamin Hulett – London Handel Pageant (Picture: Craig Fuller)

Phelan’s large concept was to current every character as an archetype in order that the viewers didn’t want to fret in regards to the varied parts of backstory. However in a way, backstory doesn’t matter in Tamerlano, it’s a kind of sealed field sorts of Baroque plot the place a bunch of characters is introduced collectively and stuff occurs! Phelan and Boyd had given every character a particular look, and every singer had their very own space of the stage, with all performers current for nearly all of the motion. Boyd’s use of the obtainable space was imaginative, although I didn’t really feel the manufacturing used this to the very best.

The director of that 2022 Cambridge Handel Opera manufacturing of Tamerlano, Dionysios Kyropoulos defined once I interviewed him that Tamerlano is a sanguine particular person (within the 18th-century utilization of the time period) – careless, pleasant and jealous, while Bajazet is choleric – pompous, proud, cussed and irritable, and the drama comes from the interplay of the 2. Right here Phelan and Laing undermined that as a result of Laing’s Trump/Tamerlano was bitterly humorous and humour has no function on this drama. An viewers laughing heartily at Trump/Tamerlano implies that they don’t discover him harmful. Laing’s efficiency was a dramatic tour de pressure, although alas his coloratura was moderately wayward and general there was an absence of a component of hazard.

Handel: Tamerlano – James Laing, Nardus Williams – London Handel Pageant (Picture: Craig Fuller)

Benjamin Hulett’s Bajazet was introduced as a Leonardo da Vinci lookalike Renaissance artist. Why? Bajazet is a Turkish sultan captured by Tamerlano. For the primary half of the opera, this Bajazet was moderately passive, regardless of a robust efficiency of the opening aria from Hulett. There was actually little sense of this Tamerlano and Bajazet needling one another. However on the finish of the Throne Room scene, when Bajazet has the lengthy accompanied recitative, Hulett’s dramatic intuition took over in order that right here, and within the climactical dying scene he was terrific. Highly effective and incisive, but the coloratura by no means felt effortful; his sense of line was terrific, but his phrases had been admirably clear. This was a efficiency we have to hear once more, in a extra sympathetic manufacturing.

Nardus Williams, as Asteria, didn’t have a persona to sink into. She was merely Bajazet’s daughter, and therefore in comparable Renaissance garb. This meant that Williams was in a position to take Asteria and run along with her. She shouldn’t be wilting flower, and while Williams gave us some excellent Handel singing she additionally formed the drama in order that her Asteria moved from demure to feisty with hardly disturbing a hair. Her scene on the finish of the Throne Room scene the place she turned and requested a query of every of the protagonists was masterly, adopted by her pretty aria. Elsewhere, the duet with Jake Ingbar’s Andronico was maybe one of many loveliest of issues in the entire night. Williams made you actually consider on this Asteria and her journey.

She was splendidly partnered by Jake Ingbar as Andronico. He was dressed as a form of seventeenth century interpretation of what an Historic Roman or Greek soldier could be like, and therefore made a sympathetic pairing to Williams’ Asteria. Ingbar sang with nice great thing about tone, readability and sympathy however this Andronico was no wimp. Generally that character can appear that manner, however right here Ingbar, as he prowled across the stage appeared to have actual ethical authority. His nice aria that concluded Act One was terrific stuff and Ingbar’s sense of drama solely developed extra. For as soon as, you understood why this was the function performed by Handel’s main man.

Handel: Tamerlano – Kitty Whately, Jake Ingbar – London Handel Pageant (Picture: Craig Fuller)

Kitty Whately’s Irene gave the impression to be a personality out of Jane Austen or maybe Thackeray. When not singing she was busy at her writing desk or doing embroidery. Whately sang with a way of class and tender grain to the voice, but there was ethical authority too. She impressed with the way in which she wouldn’t stand for nonsense, but when lastly this Irene reached settlement with Laing’s Trump/Tamerlano there was a way that she may relish the pomp and energy.

The small function of Leone was very finely sung by Jonathan Brown. But Leone is a bit-part, a pal to Andronico and Tamerlano. Right here, he was a Freud determine full together with his personal consulting room, and it was he who opened the motion, writing that this was a social experiment. Thus undermining the entire reasoning of the drama. He obtained each of his arias, which was one thing of a luxurious in a manufacturing that was minimize.

Phelan’s interventions went past this. She undermined the nice Throne Room scene by staging it not in the primary, central performing house however as a substitute utilizing a cramped house on the corridor’s fundamental stage. Trump/Tamerlano’s desk changing into the Throne, and the second when Bajazet lays down in entrance of the throne and says Asteria should step on him to ascend was completely missing. Equally, the banquet scene in Act Three was skimped and lacked any sense of ceremonial.

Handel: Tamerlano – Jake Ingbar, Nardus Williams – London Handel Pageant (Picture: Craig Fuller)

The English translation was uncredited. It was fashionable and moderately penny plain, however it was clear that this was extra a model than a translation with the phrases being adjusted to suit Phelan’s idea. The entire manufacturing felt that Phelan wilfully misunderstood the underlying fundamentals of opera seria and that moderately than reinventing, she reshaped the opera in her personal picture. The pity was that she drew excellent performances from her solid. Every particular person was actually compelling, but there have been occasions when the arias felt as in the event that they every existed impartial of one another, and while Hulett’s efficiency in Bajazet’s dying scene was excellent, it lacked the sense of shock {that a} actually nice manufacturing of this opera brings.

Laurence Cummings and the Academy of Historic Music had been on gorgeous type, and the orchestra virtually turned one other character within the motion.

The London Handel Pageant’s creation of its Handel Opera Studio is an admirable factor, enabling us to discover Handel’s stage works in fashionable productions. However subsequent time, can we please have a director that understands and is sympathetic to opera seria earlier than they try to dismantle it.