ARIANNA A NAXOS (Royal Opera)*****

 

By Dave

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPOpj8UfNkE

Available until: 24^th November 2020

Possible trigger warning: fake blood

As an opera fan, you get to hear and see new and exciting singers all the time and it’s one of the best things about being an opera fan but every so often, you discover a singer who is not just truly exceptional but unlike any other singer you’ve seen before. It’s especially exciting when the singer is young and almost certain to get a lot better. Stephanie Wake-Edwards impressed me in her recent Wigmore Hall recital with Allan Clayton and in the Royal Opera’s Juke Box 1. This performance only seems to confirm her star status and incredible potential.

During the pandemic, where a full-scale production is somewhere between inadvisable and illegal, a lot of opera companies have staged cantatas rather than operas. It works extremely well. Cantatas do tell a dramatic story, just as operas do. They often feature just one or two characters, which helps with the need for social-distancing (singing in a mask severely restricts the sound, as well as hiding the singer’s face). Cantatas are too short to comprise a full evening at the opera house (though perhaps, in the future, a full evening of cantatas could become an occasional feature of an opera season?) but are definitely a reasonable length to be watched at home. For the people who struggle to put aside three hours to watch a performance, a twenty-two minute cantata like Arianna a Naxos could be a more realistic option.

Arianna a Naxos is by Joseph Haydn, who composed a number of operas, but his works aren’t commonly-performed. Judging from this one, they should be. It’s not exactly the same story as in Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos. This is the story of Ariadne waking up to find Theseus has abandoned her. In this modern version of the story, she wakes up to find herself alone in the warehouse where they spent the night. It’s not filmed on location but this story is brought so vividly to life, it’s very easy to forget that.

The updating of the story to the present day works very well. Waking up and finding the boy you like has abandoned you is definitely something that still happens today (and not just to the ladies) and the modern dress doesn’t seem at all at odds with the music. Jette Parker Young Artist conductor and repetiteur Michael Papadopolous (who appeared as an actor in La Dame de Monte-Carlo, also part of the Meet the Young Artists Week) is the pianist for this performance and performs beautifully. It’s not a showy performance where you’re constantly aware of him but he’s such an important part of this production’s greatness.

If Stephanie Wake-Edwards hadn’t possessed one of opera’s most astounding and individual voices, I think she’d probably have been an actor. Her talent as a performer is incredible. She is so good, it isn’t actually like watching a cantata, opera, play or any other kind of performance. It really does feel as though we’ve intruded into something real and that we’re witnessing someone’s real pain. But she’s so good and so compelling, I never actually felt uncomfortable and as though I was spying on her.

Her singing, of course, is gorgeous. Her voice is beautiful and exciting to listen to and she puts so much into every note. I actually missed a lot of the subtitles (the cantata is in Italian) as I was watching Stephanie’s face but she told the story so eloquently through her acting, I really don’t feel as though the subtitles would have told me very much more.

Another great production from the Royal Opera’s Meet the Young Artists Week. It’s fair to say I’m enjoying meeting them very much (I don't get to the opera nearly as often as I used to) – and I can’t wait to see them again.