Profile reviews
1The other experienced trouper, Terfel's fellow Welsh singer Rebecca Evans (pictured below on the right with Barbara Massaro's Nannetta, Franek and Anna Dowsley), produced the ideal expansive phrasing for Alice Ford's mockery of her "shining star" over lecherous Falstaff in an otherwise not quite crisp enough first ensemble scene - there seemed to be a bit of wrong-footing in Act 2 Scene 2's "gaie comare di Windsor", too - and her sense of fun was ideal for the merriest of wives...
Past Production Reviews
3Under baroque specialist Christian Curnyn, the orchestra of English National Opera plays Rodelinda’s sublime score to perfection. Designer Jeremy Herbert’s three-room set, comprising the cross section of a house, switches scenes instantly from a panelled office where Juan Sancho’s usurping king Grimoaldo obsessively watches closed circuit television, to the adjoining whitewashed cell where Rebecca Evans’s imprisoned queen Rodelinda mouths curses at the surveillance screen.
Tim Mead is excellent as Bertarido. Lamenting his fate – all but Garibaldo lament their fate at at least one point in the opera – he lets the pure sound of his voice and the music do the work, rather than emoting. Yet he can convey exasperation or desperation both vocally and in his occasionally shambling gait. His Act 2 duet with Rodelinda (Io t’abbraccio) is delicious – and so poignant as they are physically parted by their rooms separating off to the wings.
