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Hipermestra at Glyndebourne, with conductor William Christie at the harpsichord alongside members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
Hipermestra at Glyndebourne, with conductor William Christie at the harpsichord alongside members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Observer
Hipermestra at Glyndebourne, with conductor William Christie at the harpsichord alongside members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Observer

Hipermestra review – Cavalli comes in from the cold

This article is more than 6 years old

Glyndebourne, Lewes
Graham Vick and William Christie make a welcome festival return with a musically flawless account of this baroque rarity

An air of animal, vegetable or mineral mystery hung over the opening opera in Glyndebourne’s 2017 season. No one had much knowledge of Francesco Cavalli’s Hipermestra (1658) unless they saw it at the Early Music festival in Utrecht in 2006. (Anyone? Tell us.) The last previous professional staging was in 1680, so no point bluffing. This was a brave choice. Any piece that could persuade Graham Vick back to the East Sussex festival after nearly two decades’ absence (he made sparks fly as head of productions in the 1990s), with William Christie directing from the harpsichord, had to be interesting at the very least.

Glyndebourne’s Cavalli “revival” has been paced softly softly. Raymond Leppard arranged and directed the Venetian composer’s L’Ormindo there in 1967 and La Calisto in 1970. Given the absence of baroque opera staging, let alone Cavalli, at that time, two within three years must have seemed a veritable stampede. Since then the company’s early opera emphasis has been on Handel and Purcell. Period style has reached new heights of technical agility, as well as credibility and acceptance. Leanness and clarity has replaced the big, blowsy efforts – long despised but now appreciated as right for those distant times – of Leppard and his crew.

An immediate observation: this Hipermestra is a brilliant accomplishment, musically flawless, dramatically rewarding. It is also topsy-turvy in having a lengthy first part (presumably to allow for the comprehensive set change of the last act) which, however good, nearly outstays its welcome. The cruel story, taken from Greek myth, revolves around an insoluble moral dilemma. Danao, King of Argos, orders his 50 daughters to marry his twin brother’s 50 sons and then slay each one. The oracle has predicted one of these nephews will usurp him. In saving his own power, the king is therefore banishing all hope of an heir. Hipermestra alone challenges her father. She has fallen in love with her cousin-husband Linceo and refuses to kill him. She suffers accordingly. With the help of a passing peacock, all ends in an uneasy happiness.

Set in a vague, contemporary Middle East (all too similar to images of Trump’s meeting with Saudi royalty), the opera opens in a lavish, gilded palace complete with gargantuan wedding cake, pink-and-white balloon arch and, for good measure, a barbed wire fence. Designer Stuart Nunn and lighting designer Giuseppe Di Iorio have spared no shock-and-awe impact in this elaborate set, with its combat vehicles, shiny Mercedes car, oil derricks and a final scene of devastation straight from any current war zone.

Emőke Baráth as Hipermestra and Raffaele Pe as Linceo. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Observer

The strong cast, led by Emöke Baráth as a fierce, bright-toned Hipermestra, with Raffaele Pe in the countertenor role of the hot but fickle Linceo, kept pace with the rapid mood changes and full-on drama throughout. Benjamin Hulett (Arbante), Ana Quintans (Elisa) and Renato Dolcini (Danao) were excellent in support, with Mark Wilde contributing nice, hip-swivelling humour in the standard nurse-hag role of Berenice. It was, however, the 10 exceptional players in the pit – including Christie and the peerless lutenist Elizabeth Kenny – who gave this music pulse and vitality. Dressed in generic Middle Eastern attire, these members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment were at times required to join the singers on stage. The two violins, Kati Debretzeni (leader) and Huw Daniel, negotiated a couple of fast-moving duets while ducking the action: some feat.

Cavalli’s style is still unfamiliar to us. Tragedy and comedy flicker and gutter simultaneously, inseparable as they are in life but resisting that certainty of tone we look for, out of habit, on the stage. Text, serious and emotionally direct, is of utmost importance. A couple of duets and a beautiful quartet aside, solo voices dominate. Much of the vocal line is recitative (sung speech), with the glories of the music lying in the largely improvised, richly coloured continuo section – here, variously, lutes, harp, lirone, cello, harpsichords. Once your ear adapts, the work of these musicians, shifting endlessly into different or dissonant pattern and ornament, can become miraculous and addictive. It’s a totality not to be approached with the wrong expectations. Try it.

Hipermestra is in rep at Glyndebourne, East Sussex until 8 July

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