English Touring Opera at the Royal College of Music
Handel and the Premier League are 2 of my favourite things in the world but that doesn’t mean they go together. Jonathan Peter Kenny conducted ETO’s Flavio (which Barry reviewed) and he also sang Polinesso Ariodante (which I’m reviewing) as well as covering Tolomeo. Then he also wrote this article for the programme called Handel and the Premier League where he compares them.
When I saw the article for the first time I was a bit like wtf? But it’s a really good article. It explains how Handel set up this really elite opera company called the Royal Academy and how they wanted to get like the very best international stars there. The opera stars were paid a really disgusting amount of money. It wasn’t a hundred thousand pounds a week but it probably felt like it. Then there were loads of like rival opera groups in London as well and they were all like competing with each other, trying to get the top stars. And the public all had their favourite companies who they went to see the most often and they wanted them to do better than the other companies and get more stars in. But then some of the singers got all unsettled. Handel had all these millions of stars each with their own special skills they wanted to show off. They were really fussy about what role they played. So sometimes they weren’t very happy with Handel and then some other opera company came along and offered them more money so they decided to go and sing for them instead. I bet Emmanuel Adebayor knows just where they’re coming from.
When you think about it it’s not that much different from the Premier League is it? And by the way a lot of football chants are based on opera.
There were a few bits of the article I didn’t like though. Comparing people connected to Handel’s company with modern day footballers is a nice idea but it’s not always going to work because not all of ETO’s audience will be football fans. Most people know who David Beckham is but they probably won’t know Nicolas Anelka and Carlos Tevez. Oh and while I’m on the subject of Becks he so shouldn’t have been Man of the Match in the last England match, he’d only been on the pitch five seconds. I don’t want him in the England squad either, he’s old and he’s overrated and he seriously needs to lose the beard. But then if you do pick a famous footballer to compare with an opera singer that doesn’t work either because there are going to be people in the audience who hate them. I mean, comparing Farinelli to Chavski’s (that’s Chelsea) Didier Drogba is a bit of an insult really and not the sort of thing an Arsenal-supporting Handel fan likes to read about. But I did quite like the idea of someone explaining to Drogba what a castrato is. Actually can I tell him?
The worst part was when the article said Alex Ferguson is like the modern day equivalent of Handel. I mean how could anyone even think about them in the same sentence? Not even Hairy likes Alex Ferguson, that should tell you something.
But anyway back to the performance. It wasn’t bad but ETO’s Flavio and Alcina were so brilliant I did end up getting quite disappointed with this one. It started badly when the characters started walking onto the stage during the overture. There’s just no need for it. Sometimes it works but usually it just looks stupid and fake and it takes your attention away from the orchestra. And some of the performers started dancing and clapping. They did a good job of it but it really pissed me off. I wanted to listen to the overture and all the old instruments. I’ve got the whole rest of the opera to look at the singers, the overture should be the orchestra’s moment.
I don’t know much about the costumes but it looked really modern. Dalinda confused me, she was wearing her hair up and a grey suit, I thought she was a bloke at first till I saw she was wearing a skirt. Her outfit was probably right as she’s Ginevra’s companion but at least show some cleavage woman. If you’re in an opera with trouser roles you need to make the girls look extra girly and hot. And no that’s not the only reason why I like Handel but it does help.
Anne Marie Gibbons was Ariodante, she was an ENO Young Singer and I heard her singing just about everything from Mozart to that new bloke who wrote Satyagraha. She did a pretty good job at most styles too but I think Verdi and G&S are her best composers. I’m not sure Handel is quite her thing. Her voice sounded fine but Ariodante seemed a bit high for her and I’m not sure she’s really happy with all that coloratura stuff. When she had lyrical stuff to sing she sounded great though and she did a good job of all the emotional stuff, she seemed really affected by all the s*** that was going on but she never let you forget she was a bloke. She was really good at all the blokey stuff actually even though she had her hair in a scrunchie.
Rachel Nicholls wasn’t great as Ginevra, well she looked great and everything and her singing was good but her voice seemed a bit big for Handel, for Ginevra anyway. But maybe they just wanted a bit more contrast with Dalinda who was a proper soubrette type. Katherine Manley was good vocally as Dalinda, ideal for light Handel roles and she’d do a good job with light Mozart too I think. Only thing was though I thought Dalinda was supposed to be like all silly and girly but she seemed quite serious from the start, maybe that was her clothes and her hair, she looked like a businesswoman. That or a bloke.
Jonathan Peter Kenny who wrote the article played Polinesso. In the first act I couldn’t really hear him over the orchestra. I can’t say his falsetto didn’t seem very strong because counter tenors don’t sing falsetto so I’ll say his larynx didn’t seem to tilt strongly. Later on though as you worked out what a total w****r he was his voice got bigger.
Andrew Slater and Nathan Vale had smaller roles, Ginevra’s dad Donald and Ariodante’s brother Lurcano. Nathan did a good job as Lurcano, one thing Handel did wrong is not writing more important tenor roles, there are loads of tenors around who do them really well. Handel basses tend not to be as good though, most basses have really big voices and they can’t get round all those little notes. Andrew Slater had a bit of trouble like that but maybe he was just he was just having an off day, he was fine when he was in Flavio.
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