Handel: Alcina

It might be questionable to begin a Handel opera with spoken word (before the overture) and end it with a quiet, contemplative aria (and not with the great finale). Mayer-Oertl lets his Alcina begin with an additional prologue taken from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso that prepares the audience, spoken by a pitiable man that Alcina had enchanted into a lizard. As this lizard turns out to be Oberto's father at the end, the addition helped to round the somewhat weird plot. The same goes for the rearrangement of Ruggiero's aria "Verdi prati" to the very end of the opera which gave a thought-provoking summary.

But before all musical or dramatic issues, this production will be kept in most pleasant memory for its rich and colourful decor and costumes. The empty stage is only furnished by choir members and supernumeraries - but clothed as many different varieties of fish, birds, lizards, horses, dragons, but also orchids, bushes, palm trees, even rocks and stones, they provide a scenery as rich as one can imagine. Alcina rides on a real-size Elephant assembled from entwined (fake) human bodies, Morgana on a giant turtle that moved so slowly that it almost seemed realistic. All those details gave a reflection of Baroque opera - Oronte's dragon outfit even reminded me of the typical castrato opera costume. Alcina's magical primeval garden with all the enchanted human beings is only slightly disturbed by the Vanity motif - Alcina's skeleton stand-in that emerges only for short moments. After Alcina's death and the re-enchanting of her victims, that typically baroque Vanity gets its proper place: the final aria "Verdi prati" taking place on an empty stage with the choir in their every-day clothes as an audience. The only stage detail that I found a bit irritating was one of those cubic neon objects that are now so often to be seen, matching or not. I at any rate did not catch its allegorical (?) sense.

Kruger sings Alcina in two different productions this season at Darmstadt as well as at the Wiesbaden opera, which is no surprise with her beautiful voice, stylistic reliability and dramatic aura - there was always a magical air of mystery about her. She did not seem to have any problems with all these coloratura arias and with the changes of mood, from melancholic to heroic. To my mind, though, she used too much slurred notes that did not sound too appealing. Yanuo Guo as Bradamante less affected, though not so atmospheric.

The local newspaper critic denounced Austrian countertenor Arno Raunig's Ruggiero to have a somewhat "scratchy voice", an impression I cannot but fully disagree. He sang smoothly, stylistically convincing, with the ornaments fluently delivered. With his deeply moving rendering of the melancholy arias "col celarvi" and "verdi prati" he created a magical atmosphere that struck the audience (that is, it kept in a concentrated silence and then, after a short break, erupted in Bravi - which cannot be said for the rest of the evening, some audience members irritatingly applauding after the second part of da capo arias etc). Although register changes were a bit problematic, I was fully convinced by his performance. In the terzetto, Kruger's, Guo's and Raunig's voices mixed beautifully together with Raunig's special timbre giving an interesting colour.

Maya Boog as Alcina's sister Morgana was one of the most quicksilver actors I have ever seen on any stage. Always scrambling about, it was just astonishing that she was able to sing in a well balanced and stylistically adequate way. The producer seemingly did not trust entirely on her voice, as she had to perform in a glittery silver chorus-girl costume that showed by far more than it covered. The Echo critic even presumed to claim that "it is a pity that Boog now leaves the ensemble, not only for her beauty but also for her beautiful voice" (quoted from memory)... A nice detail: during one aria, while she had a "duet" with the 1st violinist, she climbed into the orchestra pit where she "seduced" the poor orchestra player, whom she even undressed his jacket and tie, until the conductor stopped her before she could undress his shirt.

The role of Oberto may seem quite superfluous, but Meszaros's youthful voice with even heroic moments, as well as the prologue mentioned above, helped this character to greater meaning. Stroeckens's Oronte with a youthful but not outstanding tenor voice.

In my eyes, Chico-Bonet was miscast as Medisso with an uncouth, raw voice that did not match the atmosphere of the production to which all the others, including the infectiously playing Darmstadt orchestra, fitted so beautifully in.