US Edition 
Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Garsington Opera, review
Rupert Christiansen enjoys a brave and fun-filled re-imagining of Mozart's most loveable opera.
Whatever one thinks of its staging – which will surely divide critical opinion – there is no question of this performance’s musical excellence.
Entführung is in my book Mozart’s most instantly lovable opera – a score through which his youthful genius romps in exuberant cartwheels. William Lacey conducts it here deftly and unassertively, allowing the singers room to focus on the daunting vocal challenges it pitches. None of them muffs the catch: the team is without a weak link.
A svelte American soprano Rebecca Nelsen executes Konstanze’s wildly contrasting arias with crystalline tone and precision, abetted by a canny decision to move the killer “Martern aller Arten” to the third act. Norman Reinhardt is her handsome Belmonte, short on melting elegance in “O wie ängstlich”, but pleasingly vigorous and upfront throughout. Susanna Andersson and Mark Wilde sparkle merrily through Blonde and Pedrillo’s arias, and Matthew Rose makes a marvellously lugubrious bloodhound of Osmin, turning “O wie will ich triumphieren!” into a showstopper.
They all have plenty of acting to do as well. The director Daniel Slater has re-imagined the libretto, and please wait before groaning at the prospect of yet another deconstructive updating, because this one has an energy and charm that lowers curmudgeonly resistance.
Slater’s concept is that Belmonte is a young American abroad, seeking to rescue his Spanish girlfriend Connie, who has been seduced by a footie-mad Russian oligarch (aka the Pasha Selim, played here by Aaron Neil) and locked up in his gated mansion, policed by Osmin and his Pulp Fiction heavies.
All sorts of liberties are taken and the text has been rewritten in a rather infuriating polyglot, only intermittently surtitled. Sometimes it thinks that it is much wittier than it is – the level of verbal gaggery isn’t high, and I had to shut my eyes when the sublime “Traurigkeit” was choreographed to Konstanze’s exercise routine.
More problematically, there’s a disjunct between the fresh ardour of Mozart’s music and the cynical farce of Slater’s plot which leaves the Pasha’s ultimate clemency undervalued – here he just lets everyone go because he’s feeling good after his club has won a big match.
But this is a great fun night out. Francis O’Connor’s brilliantly inventive design springs some delightful surprises in the manner of an Advent calendar, and I was ultimately won over by the show’s sheer theatrical bravado, as well as the pleasure radiated by a generally enraptured audience.
Until July 6. Tickets: 01865 361636; www.garsingtonopera.org