With a merry Xerxes, Longborough's mastering another German

Longborough has built a mighty reputation as one of the best places to see Wagner operas in Europe.  With their second brilliant interpretation of Handel ... and a third announced for the 2016 season ... I suspect they might become equally famous on that front.

Xerxes was a merry romp filled with exquisite music, virtuoso arias and impressive acting.  It was hard to believe this was the youth production, so assured were the performances.  A friend who accompanied us and was a Longborough first timer thought the voices were better here than in the ENO's Xerxes last year.

Baroque opera is always a bit of a jolt to modern sensibilities.  Convoluted plots assumed the audience knew its classical history or bible, productions relied on lavish, court masque-style stage sets and the heroes ... despite their swaggering masculinity ...  sang in the high, clear notes of a choir boy.  Today we call this voice a countertenor, and it's rare to find even one compelling man who can deliver the goods.  Longborough gave us two.  Jake Arditti, who was triumphant in last year's Rinaldo, once again took the title role.  Not only is his singing exquisite, but he commands the stage with aggressive bravado, quickly dispelling the oddity (to modern ears) of a bullying military commander who sounds like a girl.  The equally impressive Tai Oney made his Longborough debut as Xerxes' brother Arsamene.  Leaving aside much detail, the plot is essentially a battle between the brothers for the same girl, and much of that fight plays out in duelling arias, with each man using vocal pyrotechnics to try to best the other.  Everyone wins.  The brothers get the girls they should, the audience gets a thrill ride and Arditti and Olney get solid foundations for what will be, no doubt, long and prosperous careers.

The rest of the cast was equally strong, including the period orchestra who sat on stage and thus became a part of the show.  Alice Privett delivered a particularly assured mix of voice and acting, and she's another I won't be surprised to spot on much bigger stages in years to come.

Director Jenny Miller once again met the combined challenges of Baroque opera, limited budget and small stage by shifting the action to a counter-intuitive modern setting.  Last year we inhabited the world of a travelling circus, this year Xerxes' court became a nightclub.  And once again, even though  I generally don't like radical interpretations on the set and costume front, this worked brilliantly.  Xerxes might have been a titan of history, but Handel spends little time on battles or politics.  This is a tale of convoluted relationships, with a bit of comic farce, in which a powerful leader is brought down a peg and taught some humility by the women in his life.  Turning him into a Sinatra-style nightclub boss worked beautifully, and creating a stage onto which various singers could step into the spotlight to deliver their arias was a brilliant move.

As a rare treat, this Longborough production is touring.  If you act fast, you can see this impressive performance for yourself.  They're in London on Thursday the 30th (details here) and on to Brighton on Sunday (details here).  Because this is a youth production, ticket prices are much lower than usual (both at Longborough and on tour) so this is a bargain way to take in some very impressive talent.  If you're free and in the area, make the effort.

I am very excited to see Alcina on the Longborough schedule for next year.  After the success of the first two, I don't think we'll be able to resist a third LFO Handel.  Meaning we might have some scheduling challenges.  Despite being patrons, we can usually only fit in two opera weekends a summer.  But next year, in addition to Alcina, we're being offered Tannhauser (a must) and the Marriage of Figaro (one of our all time favourites).  I'm afraid Janacek's Jenufa is going to be the obvious one to skip.  Although such is my faith in Longborough productions that, if we lived closer, I'd even give a 20th century "grim story of infanticide and redemption" (Wikipedia) a try.  I'm starting to think this opera company can make anything they touch turn to gold.