Rossini’s Le Comte Ory and Gounod’s Faust - reviews
THE Dorset Opera Festival is unique in that it creates two full scale opera productions annually with only two weeks’ rehearsal.
Standards are consistently high, and the setting in the grounds of Bryanston School is as splendid as any country house festival.
This year the contrasting operas were Gioachino Rossini’s romp Le Comte Ory and Charles Gounod’s supernatural tragedy Faust. The chorus of mainly students from the annual summer school were joined by well-known opera singers.
The plot of Le Comte Ory is in true Carry On tradition. While the men of the Castle of Fourmoutiers are away at the Crusades, the reprobate Count Ory, in love with Countess Adele, hatches a cunning invasion plan by disguising himself and his men as nuns seeking shelter from the storm.
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There is a saucy three-in-a-bed scene during the night’s confusion with Ory (Nico Darmanin), his page Isolier (Heather Lowe), and Adéle, (Jennifer France) before the Crusaders return and Ory has to beat a hasty retreat.
Gounod’s Faust is more weighty in its morality tale of Faust’s pact with the devil. Spanish tenor Alejandro del Cerro as the anti-hero Faust delivers his arias with exemplary style and distinguished bass Mark S Doss disguises Méphistophélès’s balefulness with a careless charm.
Anna Patalong as Marguerite is delicate and heart-touching. Nicholas Lester as her brother, Valentin, who is felled by Faust’s sword, delivers as devastating a death curse to his sister as I’ve heard.
The chorus members are outstanding in trenchant ensembles such as the famed “soldiers’ chorus”. Excellent work too from Dorset Opera Festival Orchestra.
VERDICT: 4/5
Rossini’s Le Comte Ory; Gounod’s Faust Bryanston, Dorset (Run ended; dorsetopera.com)
