Amadigi di Gaula review – inflatables and appoggiaaturas as Handel takes a trip to Love Island | Opera

IDay 7 at Melissa Island. Melissa vaccinates Hottie Amadiji but he keeps stealing her. Oriana the bird turns Amadiji’s head, but Dardano the serpent tries to go after her too and she becomes nauseous. It gives toxic energy to the relationship.

The absurdity of Handel’s magical operas can be a headache for directors. But not for Olivia Fox, whose Amadigi for Buxton festival takes the delicate four-handed character of the composer and replaces magic with TV illusions, witches for powerful producers, and a group of foolish lovers for the crew of a Love Island-style reality show. Add an inflatable flamingo, a barrage of cameras and more hearts than a cardiologist’s conference, and you’ve got a theatrical show that will keep you so busy smiling that you barely notice you’ve internalized your emotions.

With this young cast, chemistry is everything, and it’s a joy to watch sopranos Hilary Cronin and Rowan Pearce, and countertenors James Hall and Tim Morgan (in an impressive leap), intertwine in Handel’s musical Twister. An eagle-eyed person would likely have noticed a distinct lack of low-end sounds, which is another challenge for actors, who must somehow distract us from the missing colors. Join Erin Helyard and the English Concert – a dream team of dynamism and baroque style, whose propulsive playing drives the action, only pressing pause for disturbingly emotional moments on oboe and bassoon.

This isn’t the first reality TV opera, but it’s Fox’s endless invention that sells the concept. Melissa’s delusions become a video trick, her trial by fire turns into a game show challenge, and the final act’s torture is achieved with the help of a hot pair of hair straighteners and eyelash curlers.

Hilary Cronin’s Melissa deserves her own spin-off series for her authority-suited villainy, which is delivered with a hip wiggle and an eyebrow raise, every dastardly thought or fleeting mischief used to shape Handel’s color shapes. When you hear what Cronin can do with a hair curler, you understand exactly how this curler is going to deploy. All that, and then she breaks your heart in the final song that’s delivered simply, straight down the lens.

Pearce’s wide-eyed Oriana is a vocal silver compared to Cronin’s gold – lighter and more delicate. Hall’s vocal agility gives Dardano plenty of bite, though the lovely “Pina Tirana” comes dangerously close to the hero’s sentimentality, and Morgan’s hapless charmer on Amadiji somehow gets the girl with only a slight vocal vein. slaughter.