Faramondo - Brisbane Baroque Festival 2015

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Fri 10 Apr 2015 - Sat 18 Apr 2015

Rave review warning : Faramondo is world-class opera on every level (apart perhaps from a virtually impenetrable plot).

Gottingen Handel Festival has been going for about a hundred years, and last year saw the first production of Faramondo. It is that production which has moved to Brisbane Baroque Festival.



Initially a tale of a mythical fifth century France, Paul Curran places it in a hard to define, but much more modern period. We open in an up-market casino setting – red flock wallpaper, black woodwork, and beautiful people in tuxedos and evening gowns.



Tempers flare over a game of cards, inflamed by an oath of revenge for the death of Gustavo's son. A woman, Clotilde (sister of the alleged assassin) is cable-tied on the table, and injected with a knock-out drug. Gustavo prepares to kill her. His son, Adolpho, saves her.



Faramondo (the diminutive Jennifer Rivers, playing a trouser part) is not happy and with his/her private army dressed in black, flak-jacketed and armed with automatic weapons, raids the casino. There must be a reason (which escapes this reviewer) why some of the army (provided by the Harvest Rain Company) are wearing hot pants. The guerrilla army ends up in Gustavo's daughter's bedroom. Said daughter seems largely unconcerned, and displays an enviable length of well toned leg. Faramondo is much taken by said leg on said daughter which peeves his erstwhile pal Gernando (Christopher Lowrey, wearing a furry coat, and soon to display imaginative useages of women's undergarments), who also fancies her, and presumably her garters as well.

If you are not confused, you haven't been following.

The QPAC management thoughtfully provided a diagram to help, which, provided you are qualified to deal with the Cern large Hardon Collider, you will have no difficulty understanding.

Suffice it to say that we are told that Handel's librettist (understandably anonymous on our program notes) was editing and pruning the plot right up to the last moment, and perhaps still had some work to do.

So why was the audience clearly engaged and delighted for the entire performance? Part of it was the plot, and how it was handled. The director took the opera seriously, which is a very different thing from taking it solemnly, and his whimsical playing with the plot mechinisms had us chuckling in a somewhat bemused fashion.

And the music was glorious. Both counter tenors (Tai Oney and Christopher Lowrey) were challenged by extraordinarily beautiful and complex music, and both were breathtakingly dextrous, melodic, and subtle.

Faramondo manages the trouser role with consummate skill : her body language is perfect. Both counter-tenors manage extraordinary feats of vocal dexterity – Handel on steroids. The glamorously dressed women carry off bling to perfection. Anna Starushkevych's Rosimonda puts a convincing menace in her voice as she points a gun at Gernando, and does an excellent job of conveying the inconvenient realisation that she has fallen for the man she has taken an oath to kill. Anna Devlin is a magical Clotilde, particularly in her singing of "Combatta da due venti". When those two eventually reconcile their duets are spell-binding.



Rosimonda and Faramondo, after she both imprisons and rescues him (as you do) also have a delightfully tender duet, as they sit on the steps of a grungy basement plant room. Why. you ask, does much of the action take place in a down-market concrete jungle? I'll get back to you on that.



Clotilde's duet with Adolpho, as, hooded, they face death, makes the hairs rise on the back of one's neck.

Opera often does that, conveying deep emotions almost despite rather than because of the plot.

The afore-mentioned deservedly anonymous librettist provides us with a last minute resolution which enables the performance to close on a triumphant note, and Faramondo is able to stop offering to die for any number of noble reasons, and to claim his long suffering beloved. Normally I try to avoid spoilers, but here it hardly seems to matter.

This was an opera where Handel gave us some of his most glorious music, and Brisbane was given a cast who rose memorably to the occasion. The Orchestra of the Antipodes, on period instruments, conducted by Erin Helyard, were marvellous.

The very lengthy standing ovation was entirely deserved.

How fortunate we are to have the opportunity to experience world class opera, at a world class festival.

If you still have time, mortgage the kids, sell the cat, and go.
Images appear courtesy of QPAC

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!date 10/04/2015 -- 18/04/2015
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