BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA - GIUSEPPE GAZZANIGA’S ‘ALCINA’S ISLAND’.
Bampton Classical Opera goes from strength to strength. It has established itself as one of the best-loved annual musical festivals in the Cotswolds.
Offering little-known operas from the early classical period, with dedicated professional musicians, it provides a perfect combination of culture and relaxed enjoyment - all at a very reasonable price.
This year's production of Alcina's Island by prolific composer Giuseppe Gazzaniga, was a frolic. The libretto takes a familiar trope from myth and epic poetry, that of the enchanted island where hapless seafarers become captives of a powerful, seductive sorceress. She offers them a draught from a fountain of forgetfulness that will banish thoughts of their former lives. Unless they escape from her dangerous delights they will end up transformed to beasts or rocks.
In this light-hearted version the sailors are from five different nations, creating comic caricatures and misunderstandings.
In the rôle of Alcina, the very talented Ukrainian soprano Inna Husieva gave a commanding performance that made the most of her showy arias. Her ensembles with her two attendants, Clizia and Lesbia, were outstanding, and her transformation in Act Three from a femme fatale into a fearsome fury when her captives seem to have eluded her, was certainly dramatic. Sarah Chae (recognized from last year's Fiera di Venezia) and Charlotte Badham were admirable as the two nymphs. All deserve to be regarded as stars!
Among the stranded sailors, it has to be said that Jonathan Eyers (baritone) as the flamboyant Spaniard stood out in every way. We recognize him from the 2022 production of Haydn's Fool Moon and hope to see him again in future. Both Monwabisi Lindi (tenor) and Magnus Walker (tenor) drew spontaneous applause for their arias. And it seemed unbelievable that Daffyd Allen (tenor) took over the rôle of Frenchman La Rose at two week's notice. It was word-perfect and note-perfect.
A splendid job was done by the orchestra, the conductor Thomas Blunt, and the witty translator Gilly French.
If you can still get a ticket for a future performance, do. It's great fun.
Photographs by Anthony Hall, Bampton Classical Opera.
Giuseppe Gazzaniga, L’isola d’Alcina – ‘Alcina’s Island’ (1772)
Dramma giocoso in 3 acts
Performances:
The Deanery Garden, Bampton, Oxfordshire: Friday 19, Saturday 20 July
Westonbirt School, Gloucestershire: Monday 26 August
The Barn at Old Walland, Wadhurst, East Sussex: Saturday 31 August
St John’s Smith Square, London: Friday 13 September
Libretto: Giovanni Bertati
English Translation: Gilly French
Director/Designer: Jeremy Gray
Conductor: Thomas Blunt
Orchestra of Bampton Classical Opera (Bampton, Westonbirt, Wadhurst)
CHROMA (St John’s Smith Square)
For their summer 2024 production Bampton Classical Opera will present Giuseppe Gazzaniga’s bubbling comedy L’isola d’Alcina, with a libretto by Giovanni Bertati. It will be sung in a new English translation by Gilly French as ‘Alcina’s Island’. Performances will be conducted by Thomas Blunt and directed by Jeremy Gray.
L’isola d’Alcina is loosely based on the character of the sorceress Alcina from Ariosto’s epic Orlando furioso – an Englishman, Frenchman, Spaniard, Italian and German get washed up on Alcina’s magical island where the seductive and beautiful sorceress (although 800 years old) has a habit of discarding her lovers and turning them into rocks or animals.
Gazzaniga (1743-1818), wrote at least 50 operas, of which L’isola d’Alcina was one of the most successful. His most famous was Don Giovanni, 1787 (staged by Bampton in 1997 and 2004, and performed at the Royal College of Music in November 2023). The first performance of L’isola d’Alcina was at Teatro San Moisè, Venice in 1772, and it was widely seen in Europe until 1785. There were performances at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, London in 1776 and 1777 – but probably not in England since then.
Alcina
Lesbia
Clizia
Brunoro Monwabisi Lindi (tenor)
La Rose Daffyd Allen (tenor)
James Magnus Walker (tenor)
Don Lopes Jonathan Eyers (baritone)
Baron Brikbrak Owain Rowlands (baritone)
Repetiteur Alex Norton
Assistant Director Christian Hey
Movement Director Karen Halliday
Costume Designer Pauline Smith, Anne Baldwin
Lighting Ian Chandler
Performance (as with Salieri’s At the Venice Fair in 2023) in collaboration with Forschungszentrum Hof | Musik | Stadt, Schwetzingen, Germany
Recorded on CD by L’arte del mondo, c. Werner Ehrhardt (Deutsche harmonia mundi) 2023, staged at Schwetzingen Festival, 2022.
Bampton Classical Opera stages productions in rural venues in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire as well as regularly in London at St John’s Smith Square. Other significant venues and festivals have included Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room, Buxton Festival, Cheltenham Festival and Theatre Royal Bath. Eschewing familiar repertoire, Bampton concentrates instead on rarities from the late eighteenth century, sung in lively new English translations, and has given many enterprising performances of forgotten operas. Amongst these have been UK premières of Bertoni Orfeo, Marcos Portugal The Marriage of Figaro, Paer Leonora, Benda Romeo and Juliet, Gluck Il Parnaso confuso, Philemon and Baucis and Salieri Falstaff and La fiera di Venezia.
Bampton Classical Opera was a finalist in the Rediscovered Opera category of the 2020 International Opera Awards for Stephen Storace Gli sposi malcontenti (Bride and Gloom), and last year’s production of Salieri La fiera di Venezia (At the Venice Fair) was shortlisted for the 2023 Awards.
The delightful Deanery Garden at Bampton provides a charming and picturesque venue for open-air opera, with an excellent natural acoustic. Westonbirt School is a spectacular Victorian mansion, with extensive Grade I listed gardens: the performances take place in the Orangery Theatre. Audiences are encouraged to bring their own garden chairs to Bampton and enjoy a pre-performance or interval picnic. The Barn at Old Walland is a traditional Sussex threshing barn set in the Wealden Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty: it was recently converted into an intimate performing space.
St John’s Smith Square is the most historic of London’s concert halls and provides an outstanding and appropriately eighteenth-century setting for this performance.
‘Alcina’s Island’ performances, with free pre-performance talks:
The Deanery Garden, Bampton OX18 2LL
7.00 pm Friday 19 and Saturday 20 July
The Orangery Theatre, Westonbirt School, near Tetbury, Gloucestershire GL8 8QG
5.00 pm Monday 26 August
The Barn at Old Walland, Wadhurst, East Sussex TN5 6LU
6.30 pm Saturday 31 August
St John’s Smith Square, London SW1P 3HA
7.00 pm Friday 13 September
Booking Information, Bampton, Westonbirt and Wadhurst
Tickets for Bampton and Westonbirt: £42 (under 18: half-price)
Tickets for Wadhurst: £85 (includes an optional £20 donation to the British Red Cross)
Online: www.bamptonopera.org
Booking information, St John’s Smith Square
Details will be available later in the year.
For further information, please contact:
Margaret Skeet PR
020 8 351 0726/07855 707418
The central role of Alcina in Bampton Classical Opera’s production of Giuseppe Gazzaniga’s ‘Alcina’s Island’ will be sung by the London-based Ukrainian soprano Inna Husieva. Inna has established herself as one of the most promising young sopranos. She took second prize in the Elizabeth Connell Prize Competition 2023 and is currently a Scottish Opera Emerging Artist 2023-2024, appearing in many productions this season. Recently she has covered the role of Violetta in Scottish Opera’s production of ‘La traviata’ and has sung one performance as Violetta in Glasgow then will be singing a second this Friday in Edinburgh. She will cover for the role of Helena in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s ‘Festen’ at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, next season.
INNA HUSIEVA - LINK TO FULL BIOGRAPHY