This revival of the Tudor Trilogy cycle’s most successful production (first presented in 2013) made a welcome return to Bristol for an evening of exciting musical delights. Donizetti’s masterpiece was here successfully realised with a convincingly modern staging and an excellent musical ensemble. Presenting the doomed love story between Elizabeth I and Robert Devereux, the Queen is in fact the opera’s central character, despite the title hinting otherwise. Producer Alessandro Talevi focuses the action on Elizabeth’s predicament and inability to find true love – her power seemingly preventing her from finding happiness and cursing her to a life of loneliness. This is symbolised in a striking recurrent spider metaphor. Soprano Joyce el Khouri, sporting arresting Vivienne Westwood-inspired costumes by XY, triumphed as the Queen in a performance of high dramatic power, despite seeming vocally tested by the considerable demands of the role. Barry Banks confirmed his status as a leading belcanto tenor, embracing the role with virtuosic abandon. The opera contains arguably one of the best and most rousing finales in the whole repertoire and the eruption which greeted the end of the opera was thoroughly deserved for all, including the dynamic and precise conducting of James Southall at the helm of the always admirable WNO
orchestra.
Di Alessandro Basile
arte e cultura
Photos by Bill Cooper. Courtesy of Welsh National Opera