The sun shines - at least we hope it does - and the champagne corks pop. Opera at Garsington Manor is a happy occasion, which it has become traditional to see reflected in activities on the stage. But a general larkiness of tone is not always appropriate, as is the case with the new production of Rossini's La donna del lago from director David Alden. The 1819 opera was adapted from Sir Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake - setting a trend for Scott on stage that was to continue for the rest of the 19th century. Both the composer and his librettist Andrea Leone Tottola paid due respect to their source's status as Romantic literature of great importance: upon the work are lavished some of Rossini's most gloriously inventive melodies, and unusual poetic devices designed to reflect the 'barbarity' of the original. It is properly a serious opera.
What, then, are we to make of a production which features - among other gimmicky flourishes - a gaggle of jauntily clad dancers accompanying the wonderful Act I duet ("Cielo! In quell'estasi") between our heroine Elena and her disguised admirer King James V; the transformation of Elena's true-love Malcolm into a leather-jacketed punk in the style of Siouxsie Sioux; and a hunting scene populated by languorous reindeers reading Country Life? Not a lot, I suggest.
How to convey the craggy majesty of the Highland scenery is a problem for any designer of this opera. Here, Gideon Davey settles for a large painting in the style of Landseer to one side of the stage and a vivid aquamarine backcloth to present the lake (but why did Elena's boat resemble a rock?). Drawing back the cloth, however, reveals a much more convincing representation of Scottish buildings, be they the home of our heroine's father, the exiled Douglas (Dean Robinson), with its display of ancestral weapons or, later, the King's palace at Stirling.
But we are at Garsington more to listen than look, and in this production we are richly supplied with sweet sounds by the singers and players, under conductor David Parry. Reprising a role that earned her considerable acclaim in a concert performance at last year's Edinburgh Festival (which is now available on disc), Carmen Giannattasio presents all the coloratura fireworks the role of Elena demands. Michael Colvin (pictured above) gives an impressive account of her rejected suitor Rodrigo, sloughing off any embarrassment he might be feeling over the absurdity of his costume - as Alexandra Sherman as punk Malcolm surely must be doing too. But loudest acclaim on the opening night was for tenor Colin Lee's James V, whose seeming ease with the fiendishly high tessitura could not fail to inspire awed admiration.
There are further performances tomorrow, on June 29, and on July 5 and 7. (Box office telephone: 01865 361636)
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