First performed in New York in 2011, and now given its European premiere by British Youth Opera, Jeremy Sams’ The Enchanted Island reverts to the Baroque genre of the pasticcio, a work fashioned to a new libretto from pre-existing music. Sams weaves together arias and choruses by Vivaldi, Handel, Rameau and Campra to form a bittersweet take on Shakespeare, in which the quartet of lovers from A Midsummer Night’s Dream is shipwrecked on Prospero’s island from The Tempest.
A work that plays fast and loose with our assumptions about the moral integrity of Shakespeare’s characters, it is directed with fastidious elegance by Stuart Barker. Tom Scott-Cowell’s Prospero is more tyrant than charismatic sorcerer, and the balance of sympathies swings towards the dispossessed Sycorax (Frances Gregory), now a major protagonist, and Timothy Edlin’s Caliban, who falls tragically in love with Helena (Caroline Taylor), when the magic wielded by Iúnó Connolly’s Puck-like Ariel goes catastrophically wrong. There’s genuine enchantment, meanwhile, in Barker’s use of the chorus, who move with the practised grace of a corps de ballet as the island’s Spirits.
It is consistently well sung and acted. Taylor and Edlin really wring your heart in their scenes together. Milly Forrest makes a radiant Miranda, pursued, again thanks to Ariel’s slipshod magic, by James Atkinson’s pugnacious Lysander and Richard Bignall’s arty Demetrius, both excellent. Forrest’s duet with Tim Morgan’s Ferdinand, when he finally arrives, is ravishing. Gregory is fearless and commanding in an incredibly difficult role. Nicholas Kraemer, meanwhile, conducts the Southbank Sinfonia with considerable grace. Whether singing or dancing, the chorus are terrific.
• At Peacock theatre, London, until 8 September.
