US Edition 
Xerxes, ENO/London Coliseum, review: 'charming'
The ENO's piquant production of Handel's Xerxes had opera stagings that matched its witty lightness of touch and perceptive historical sensibility
Nearly 30 years old now, but still as piquant and charming as it was in 1985, this version of Xerxes could bid to rank as the best large-scale staging of a Handel opera ever: it’s certainly one that has been enormously influential, often imitated but seldom equalled.
Although it was originally directed (and smartly translated) by Nicholas Hytner, the designer David Fielding must take the major chunk of the credit for the visual concept – a freely evoked Georgian setting which teasingly suggests the louche manners of Handel’s London and its imagining of the antique past without cluttering or numbing period detail.
Miraculously, it seems both coolly modern and elegantly rococo in style, as well as providing plenty to delight and amuse the eye – everyone’s favourite joke being the peremptory collapse of the Hellespont Bridge. If only there were more contemporary opera stagings that matched its witty lightness of touch and perceptive historical sensibility.
Xerxes stands at a turning-point in Handel’s oeuvre, composed as the bubble of popularity for full-blown stately Italian opera seria was deflating and audiences sought something faster-paced and less pompously regal. Some oddly flat-footed tempi adopted by the otherwise spry conductor Michael Hofstetter threatened the pace, but the evening’s only real drawback was the singing of the title-role.
Alice Coote characterised the swaggering but deluded monarch with all her customary flair, bold attack and vocal vibrancy: she is never less than riveting. But I’m not convinced that this repertory is now the best vehicle for her: there were too many points in the evening when that flair, attack and vibrancy became over-emphatic and even a bit hooty. “Ombra mai fu” didn’t flow gently, and the virtuosic fireworks of her final aria exploded like bangers rather than Catherine wheels. Berlioz, Massenet and Strauss will suit her mature talents better.
The remainder of the cast was more satisfying. Sarah Tynan’s soubrette soprano has expanded into a lovely lyric instrument, and her Romilda was gently beguiling. Rhian Lois sparkled as the minx Atalanta, and notwithstanding the odd foghorn whoop, as Arsamenes the counter-tenor Andrew Watts excelled in both pathos and bravura. Catherine Young’s soft-grained mezzo-soprano glowed beautifully in Amastris’ lament, while Neal Davies and Adrian Powter were so ballsy in cameo roles that one wished the composer had given them more opportunities to strut their stuff.
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