The title of this post is also the title of a piece of music by Percy Grainger and, as I attended a performance of a Handel opera last night and stayed in a hotel in the Strand, I decided it was very apposite.
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n my earlier blog re Handel and my falling asleep in a performance of Semele, I was slightly worried that I would be stricken the same way during Orlando, and though there were moments during the evening when I felt the arms of Morpheus beckoning, this was not due to boredom, but rather sheer tiredness from being up since 6 am. I heroically strove to overcome these lapses and maintained an alert interest all evening.
The first thing one has to remember when going to a Handel opera is that it is a completely different listening experience. Forget weeping into a hankie at Puccini, wanting to sing along with choruses a la Verdi or grandeur of Wagner, with Handel you get a much more stylised, static music experience and the second thing to remember is that every single Handel aria is sung TWICE. Yes twice. You listen and enjoy, think it has come to an end and then blow me down if the singer doesn't go back to the beginning and do it all over again, this time with extra runs and frills at the end. Once you have grasped this fact and give yourself over to the music, then sheer pleasure sets in and plenty was on offer last night as the standard of singing was incredibly high.
The hero, Orlando, was sung by the counter tenor, Bejum Mehta (a distant relative of the conductor Zubin Mehta I gather) who has the most thrilling voice. We were sitting in the middle of Row B of the amphitheater (best seats in the house for sight lines and sound as far as I am concerned) and his voice was projected so well that I reckon it carried right to row Z up in the very rear of the gods. Simply tremendous and thrilling and the flexibility and control breathtaking. All in all he has 12 arias throughout this opera and if you remember what I said about sining them twice, then this amounts to 24. Even Wagner's Siegfried would be proud of that.
It was all done with verve and humour and style and was much appreciated by the audience. The picture in this post is Orlando being tempted by Venus. Though this shows Mehta, this is a different production and I have to tell you that the Venus in the Covent Garden production did NOT have any covers at all over her breasts and they were on display all evening. When she appeared I saw arms lifting opera glasses to eyes going up all around the house! Twenty years ago this opera would not have filled even a quarter of the seats, but I gather this run has been hugely successful and with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted with such panache and charm in the pit by the wonderful Sir Charles McKerras, the entire evening was a delight (mark you the breasts of Venus might also have had something to do with it....)
The story is very silly really. Orlando the noble knight has strayed from his heroic destiny in his desire for a princess, Angelica, rescued by him from mortal danger who has most ungratefully then gone off and fallen in love with someone else. The magician Zoroastro is trying to persuade Orlando to cast off the influence of Venus and follow Mars. Orlando thinks he can cope with both thank you very much, but sadly, like most men, he cannot do two things at once and disaster ensues.
The synopsis for the end of Act II in the programme contains the following gem of a sentence: "Orlando, confronted with the reality that he will never resolve his inward contradiction or win Angelica, goes mad"
How like a man....
