Opera Seria can be a difficult sell at times. Running rigidly to a format - number for chorus, leading to aria, followed by duo, then maybe by trio - as a genre, it provides plenty of ammunition to those who accuse opera of being a lot of fuss about very little. It doesn’t help, either, that plot development tends to be predictable and that the characters express themselves in only the most general terms (usually extremes of love and hate). So, a lot depends on the quality of the singing and the acting to breathe life into something that might seem moribund.
Fortunately, English Touring Opera’s revival of Rossini’s rarely-performed Elizabeth 1 has both in abundance. Mining a fecund period of Tudor history, when Elizabeth l was consolidating her power after a shaky beginning to her reign, it centres on the conflict between the Queen and her favourite the Earl of Leicester, currently a national hero after having put down a Scottish rebellion. Yet unbeknownst to his Queen, who may have her own amorous designs on him, Leicester has entered into a secret marriage with Matilde, daughter of Elizabeth’s executed rival Mary Stuart. After he is betrayed by the Iago-like figure of the Duke of Norfolk (the opera’s very operatic villain), Elizabeth turns on him and casts him into prison, after failing to persuade his bride to relinquish him. Keen opera observers will note the parallels with Verdi’s Aida and Otello, both of which were composed some time after this work. All comes right in the end though, and with the Queen’s change of heart, the lovers are reunited, Norfolk punished and all live happily (and unhistorically) ever after.
This production was extremely fortunate to have bel canto specialist Mary Plazas in the taxing central role of the Queen. Those who have followed Ms. Plazas career know that she has an uncanny ability to incarnate a role, creating a living and breathing figure out of a librettist’s sketchiest outlines. Her Elizabeth is far from being a naturally sympathetic figure, and that the Queen carries within her the potential for great cruelty common to all monarchs of the period, is never in doubt. Throughout, she was vocally secure and navigated some of the fiendishly difficult coloratura arias with impressive skill: a portrayal of a powerful woman with considerably more dignity than the benighted Theresa May!
As her lover/antagonist, tenor Luciano Bortelho was similarly effective, using his small but splendidly lyrical instrument to great effect in his scenes with Elizabeth and Matilda, even if he found the (admittedly demanding) cabaletta in his prison area visibly taxing. He had fine acting skills, too, to match those of his fellow tenor John-Colyn Gyeantey as the duplicitous Norfolk. The balance between the two (high) tenor voices was extremely well-managed (it wasn’t unusual for Rossini to overload his operas with one voice type - his version of Otello demands no less than three tenors!), and their confrontations were some of the high-points of the performance. Lucy Hall also impressed in the secondary, but important role of Matilde, she and Plazas striking sparks off each other in their Act 1 duet.
Director James Conway’s production, with uncluttered designs by Frankie Bradshaw, has the virtues of clarity and precision of staging, with the ETO chorus effectively placed to comment on the action. In the pit, John Andrews presided over the chamber forces of the ETO orchestra, conjuring clear textures from the strings and forceful rhythms from the brass and basses, that kept the drama moving. And this little-known opera has a surprise: the Buxon audience was stunned to hear the overture seamlessly morph into that of Il Barbiere Di Siviglia - Rossini regurgitating his ‘great tune’ for the later opera, as the surtitles helpfully informed us.
Reviewer - Richard Ely
on - 23/3/19
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