Dorset cream

My first visit to Dorset Opera, last year, left me very impressed. If anything this year was even better, though I found one of the three operas dull. In last year’s programme, I seem to remember, we were promised an Olympically themed opera, Jesse Owens, but that didn’t materialise, nor was there any mention of it. 

As usual, after ten intensive days of rehearsal, with all concerned living in Bryanston School, Dorset Opera puts on one opera the first night, another one (this year two) the second, the first on the third, and on the last day the first is a matinée. This year’s mainstay was Il Trovatore, an opera that I have never seen satisfactorily performed, despite its musical unsinkability. Sally Burgess, the great mezzo who has now turned to training and directing, showed her experience by making this as straightforward a production as possible, with a simple set alternating arches and stairs, which turned out to be versatile enough for the other two operas as well. Disaster almost struck for this last performance: the scheduled tenor and contralto succumbed to a cold, while the soprano had it but was able to sing; the baritone was involved in a family tragedy and unable to appear; so the singers who had given what they thought was their all on the previous evening had to give what they had left the next afternoon at 2 as well.  

Astonishingly, they managed, though there were signs of caution to begin with. But if anything as they warmed up they seemed to grow boundless in their confidence and their urge to communicate. Gerard Quinn’s di Luna was a most striking performance, possibly the most interesting account of the role I’ve seen, making a character normally just thought of as ‘the villain’ into as rounded a figure as Verdi permits.