Alcina at the Barbican

Alcina - Barbican, 4 December 2010

This was billed as a concert performance of Handel's Alcina, but it wasn't one of those nose-in-book affairs. With the musicians and most of the cast fresh from a fully-staged version at Vienna's Staatsoper (the first baroque opera there in 40 years!), the awkwardly wide Barbican stage was put to good use for once. Singers sang to each other not their scores, toyed with improbable props (a sheet of paper for an urn....please), and faux 18th century settees were distributed on either side of an orchestra twice the size of Handel's. But then Marc Minkowski's approach to period performance has never been the emaciated doctrinaire type. Vibrato was flaunted, instrumental soloists stepped up front to do their bit.

I'd been looking forward to Anja Harteros in the title role, especially after the rave reviews she'd received in Vienna. Despite the Barbican website not giving a sniff of any change, it turned out she was to be replaced by Inga Kalna, a former Hamburg Opera stalwart who's tackled everything from Liu to Lucia. Her sound is a bit on the lush, weighty side for Alcina, but then the same could be said of Harteros. Her grande dame demeanour though was perfect for the imperious sorceress. A few pinched top notes aside, she settled into a remarkably fine performance.

Further compensation for the loss of Harteros came in the form of the shovel-chinned Queen of Pants, Vesselina Kasarova, as Alcina's bewitched lover Ruggiero. Few singers divide opinion like la Kasarova. But most of the Barbican audience joined opera lovers in Vienna, Zurich and Munich (where she is a cult star) in overlooking the register breaks and breathy coloratura and sacrificing themselves to the remarkable intensity of her performance. A show which started off a little saggy and uncertain suddenly tautened the minute she came on stage.

The other remarkable performance came in the role of the boy Oberto, usually a soprano, but here taken by an actual boy. Shintaro Nakajima of the Vienna Boys Choir has the sweetest and firmest of voices coupled with the frighteningly premature assurance of a Dakota Fanning.

The other singers were solid but not in quite the same league. Veronica Cangemi sang fussily and sometimes inaudibly as the infatuated Morgana. I wondered if she was a little under the weather - I've heard much better from her in the past. Romina Basso wasn't in the Vienna production, and though she sang Bradamante with enthusiasm, her score impeded her full involvement. Handel reserved his best tunes for the ladies, but Benjamin Bruns and Luca Tittoto did well as Oronte and Melisso without making a huge impression.

  
 

 
 
  
   
 
 
 
 

Comments

[Vecchio John]

I specifically checked the Barbican site to see if there were any cast changes before literally digging my car out.

Inga Kalna was adequate but hardly a figure of enchantment and allure in what turned out to be a semi-staged performance.

This my third Harteros cancellation, and even excedes La Gheorghiu over a much longer timescale.

[AlisonC]

I thought Kalna was a much more than adequate replacement. She wasn't quite as glamorous as Harteros, but if Alcina was as alluring as all that she wouldn't have had to bother enchanting people, would she? :-)

[Kit Gill]

I was lucky enough to catch Harteros a fortnight ago in Vienna - and it was (sorry) stunning, and not matched by Kalna. But I was nonetheless impressed by the excellent job Kalna did under the circumstances.
I saw a different "actual boy" in Vienna (two shared the role), and amazingly he was just as good. Something in the water?
As for "shovel-chinned Queen of Pants" (naughty IM!) she was as breathtaking as before.
The only thing I missed were the topless male dancers ...

[Keithyboy]

Hope Harteros is better by Sunday as I am SO looking forward to her Mimi in La Boheme at the Bayerischer Staatsoper...

[Sarah R]

I phoned the Box Office in the morning to check that the concert would be taking place and was told that they had no information to the contrary. Of course I should have specifically asked whether Harteros would be singing, but that wasn't my major concern. I didn't want to drive through snow to London only to find that the concert had been cancelled. There were those Harteros fans who left at the interval, but I have to say that Inga Kalna, who I imagine was unfamiliar to many of the audience as she was to me, acquitted herself commendably. The boy was absolutely amazing, as was Kasarova in a different way, but I am not sure how many more times I want to hear her.

[Rannaldini]

Well no-one else seems as enthusisatic as me! I loved every minute of this. I think "shovel-chinned" is a little harsh IM. Comments about voice = fair enough and Kasarova is certainly a "Marmite" singer - love her or hate her, but I wouldn't go that far. Personally I adore her - she really is a singer / actress in a time when more and more emphasis placed upon looks. Love her or hate her, no one can deny that her voice is unique and entirely her own, and that's all we can look for in an age of mass produced uniform conservatoire and competition styled voices. I welcome the diversity. As a veteran of over 1,500 classical concerts over the years I don;t think I've ever seen or heard anything quite like it. I know from talking to several of the worlds "greatest" (whatever that means!) mezzos that they all admire her and adore her and think she is one of the greatest talents of her age, and who am i to disagree? These barbican concert performances are becoming very successful - I can think of several others - a good Dido with Christie, some Verdi opera with LSO, and one or two others - I would urge them to continue the programming of these highly enjoyable events.

[Nikolaus Vogel]

The Financial Times has a rather different view of Ms Shovel-Chin (brilliant, IM) but that's only a critic's opinion, of course, easily ignored by signed-up fans. It's sad about Harteros - she's quite a canceller these days. She's got loads of Covent Garden contracts upcoming - Desdemona, Suor Angelica, Manon Lescaut among them - so let's hope she doesn't turn out to be Gheorghiu II.

[Purity McCall]

Great report (although ouch!, shovel-chinned?) and yes having seen Alcina in Vienna and then this, as I saw Agrippina in Zurich after a concert at Festival Hall, I must say I am beginning to feel like I enjoy good concert stagings like this perhaps even more than full stagings... partly because it is so much fun to watch Minkowski and his gang!

Thought Kalna was just great, very diferent reading but still very affecting.

[Stephen Follows]

I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned Nakajima - an extraordinary performance from easily the most gifted boy soprano I've ever come across (and I lived in Oxford for twenty years, so I've heard, and sung with a few).

So good was he that the chap in the seat next to me was convinced that he was only wearing his loose VBC top to hide evidence that he was actually a woman.

Can someone start a campaign to record this remarkable voice before nature has its wicked way with him?

[John Collis]

I agree with Rannaldini. A terrific performance of Handel's greatest opera.

There are many mezzo-sopranos and most give good and respectable performances, but they can be dull. Kasarova is never dull. She's different - a stunner. She puts everything she has into it. If there's an occasional bump, it just adds to the excitement.

With no previous knowledge about Harteros, I was delighted to see that Inga Kalna was going to sing Alcina. She sang beautifully as Dorotea in Conti's Don Chisciotte in Brussels last July. The audience there loved her, as they did at the Barbican. May we see her much more often in London.