Handel’s operas don’t stage themselves. In her new production of Rodelinda for Garsington Opera, the director Ruth Knight has to grapple, like those before her, with the need to balance the tone, taking the story and its unlikely curveballs seriously enough to make us care, and yet finding enough levity to entertain. By and large she succeeds – but even if not everything we see on stage convinces, what we hear certainly does. The cast, led by Lucy Crowe’s powerhouse Rodelinda and Tim Mead’s gloriously rich-toned Bertarido, is first-rate, the playing of the English Concert thrillingly energised. Conducted by Peter Whelan, they support the singers yet never give the impression of holding back.
Leslie Travers’ set brings the bones of the Garsington Opera pavilion on to the stage, with the same steel beams and glass panels that are all around us creating two levels of playing area. At the top there are three groves of green trees, one for each of the royal siblings whose power plays, depicted in the busy overture, have led to the opera’s starting point; all have turned to ash by Act three. It mostly works well, but can feel cramped, with the tallest dancer’s head missing the girders by only inches.
Those dancers are the usurper Grimoaldo’s staff: a dozen or so creepy ninja-like attendants who move like snakes or birds. Sometimes they fight; more often they lurk, staring – a pack of velociraptors who are not quite hungry yet, but will be soon. Crowe’s Rodelinda takes several of them down in her first rage aria, whirling her sword like Uma Thurman as the Bride, but in gold silk trousers rather than a yellow boiler suit; later she’ll drink blood squeezed from a pig’s heart before popping out high notes like little explosions. What with those attendants and this heroine – not to mention the deliciously devilish villainy of Grimoaldo’s ambitious adviser Garibaldo, smoothly sung by the bass-baritone Brandon Cedel – the feeling of menace and high stakes is taken care of.
As for the counterbalance, there are surprisingly generous touches of lightness, the best of which come courtesy of Ed Lyon’s Grimoaldo, a perfectly judged portrayal full of lightly worn swagger and increasing self-pity, or from the Unulfo of the impressive young countertenor Hugh Cutting, a kind of friend to all sides who slouches amiably around, ciggie in hand; at the end there’s a cute but superfluous suggestion that he’s a guardian angel who’s just earned his wings. Why Bertarido’s disguise should be quite so comically sparkly and camp is anyone’s guess, though, and it rather undermines the opera’s hero. Still, perhaps that is Knight’s point: often this opera can feel like it should be called Bertarido, but this time it’s definitely Rodelinda who is centre stage.
• At Garsington Opera, Buckinghamshire, until 19 July
