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Review
Agrippina, Grange Festival, review: a rare Handel production indeed – it actually left the audience wanting more
If you think Baroque opera is a dull business of cardboard characters wrapped in incomprehensible plots and interminable arias, the Grange Festival’s production of Agrippina could just win you round. Handel’s brilliant early opera has been judiciously cut and shrewdly directed, in a way which gives it a biting, farcical edge.
At its heart is the scheming mother Agrippina, wife of Roman Emperor Claudius, who will stop at nothing to make sure her darling son Nero (from a previous marriage) gains the throne. When news arrives that Claudius has died on a military campaign she seizes the moment. But Claudius inconveniently turns up, with his rescuer Otho in tow. Agrippina has to think fast to rescue her plans, and that isn’t easy because all the characters turn out to be as devious as herself.
Every opera production must have its puzzles, and this one certainly has a few. Why does Agrippina do her scheming amid the serried seating of a theatre auditorium, with plastic shrink-wrapped classical pillars dotted around? Why are the two weaselly courtiers (amusingly played by Alex Otterburn and James Hall) sporting security lanyards and clipboards, like theatre staff, and why was Claudius (the even more entertaining Ashley Riches) a caricature of a seedy and weak-willed theatre impresario with an ill-fitting toupee and raffish buttonhole? I suppose we were meant to think, “Ah yes, of course, imperial politics is really a form of theatre.”
But one soon stopped puzzling and just enjoyed the succession of intrigues, often uncovered as the stage revolved to reveal steamy assignations happening “below stairs”, while someone – usually Agrippina – eavesdropped near the wings. Counter-tenor Raffaele Pe as Nero, strutting around in leather jacket and patent-leather shoes, was vocally impressive as well as amusingly spoilt. Poppea, lover of Otho, a schemer to rival Agrippina herself, was played with delicious pertness and sweet pearly-voiced charm by Stefanie True. Christopher Ainslie as Claudius’s preferred successor Otho provided the best moment of lyrical grace in his big 3rd Act aria, where for once real feeling silenced the cynical manoeuvring.
Dominating everything was Anna Bonitatibus as the puppet-master Agrippina, who handled Handel’s big set-piece virtuoso arias with magnificent aplomb. The Academy of Ancient Music under Robert Howarth brought Handel’s tremendous score to life with surpassing vividness. In all it’s a terrific show, and the only Handel production I’ve ever seen which obeys the old showbiz principle: leave your audience wanting more.
The Grange Festival runs until 8 July. Agrippina can be seen on June 16, 23, 28, July 6; 01962 791020