Alcina
at Edinburgh Festival Theatre

Rob Lyons

'I am sure this is my father whom you turned into a beast.'

Yes folks, it's opera time again, which means yet another ludicrous storyline that would embarrass the World Wrestling Federation. Boy meets girl on island, boy falls for girl, girl has a bit of a past but turns all her ex-boyfriends into animals, boy's betrothed turns up shipwrecked on the island disguised as a man, etc. Being a novice to the opera, I spent much of the first act trying to work out what was going on. In fact this was both fruitless and pointless, since the great pleasure this work brings is down to Handel's music and the quality of the singing.

In this respect the Stuttgart State Opera has an excellent emsemble, and in Catherine Nagelstad, playing the lead, an occasionally astonishing voice. There are some lovely set-pieces, too. There is a nicely comic scene in which a jealous lover (Oronte, played by Rolf Romei) tries to persuade Alcina's lover Ruggerio that Alcina is having an affair with Ricciardo (the shipwrecked man who turns out to be Ruggerio's betrothed), and that in any event he can only expect to be turned into an animal once he falls out of favour. He does so by mimicking Alcina, stripping off and flirting with Ruggerio.

There is also a delightful section in which the cast are joined on stage by two French horn players who add a wonderful extra colour to the sound of the orchestra. Anna Viebrock's stage design is also extremely inventive, a huge central frame being at turns a mirror, a window into off-stage action and a photograph frame. The confusing plot, however, is not helped by two factors.

First, the technical problem that some of the central male parts were originally written to be sung by male castrati. Given that castrati are now a little thin on the ground, we have a woman dressed as woman disguised as a man who must win back her lover, a woman playing the part of a man. Second, the directors Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito have gone for a modern setting in a rather unhelpful way, so that the context of the story which is magical and mystical is lost. The various machinations of the cast consequently appear absurd and much of the emotional potential is compromised. If opera is to mean more than a concert with stage direction, this dramatic element needs to work better than it does in this production.

While Handel's baroque meanderings can seem a little cliched now, the music is still well worth listening to, especially when performed with gusto and subtlety as it is here. In future I think I'll skim the programme notes, ignore the supertitles and enjoy the music for itself.