★★★☆☆
This show is a whimsical indulgence. It’s not as if we’re exactly short on early operas: Handel wrote more than 40, and about 20 of Vivaldi’s survive. Do we really need a modern-day mash-up, a playlist score that’s a “best (and not really best) of baroque”? The answer is surely no. Yet like the follies loved by 18th-century landed gentry, The Enchanted Island surprises and sometimes delights, especially in the lively European premiere by the British Youth Opera.
It’s wishfully claimed that Stravinsky once said that “good composers borrow, great composers steal”. Although this pastiche seems to involve enough theft to keep the Artful Dodger happy, I’m not convinced that The Enchanted Island attains greatness. Its music has been snatched from the operas and