Sex, sorcery and sublime silliness in Armida

The plot, based on Tasso, sees enchantress Armida seduce Crusader Rinaldo away from a life of glory and honour to one of libidinous luxury in her magical forest. As Rinaldo wavers between an artificially sustained world of soft morality and invading the Middle East, you might see a smidgeon of contorted contemporary relevance.

Martin Duncan’s production doesn’t dwell on it.
Rather it’s the fantastical elements that have caught Duncan and designer Ashley Martin Davis’s imaginations. The second act — the magic forest bit — is a whirl of decent, budget ideas: frotting demons in balaclavas, sexbot succubi in swimming caps, trees on wheels and big pink tables. By comparison, the long first act features 16 blokes standing round a conference space in samurai costume. It’s too, too dull, the chorus’s movement is embarrassing and the leads’ histrionics provide the first signs of rough acting to come.

Musically, too, the production pings between the sublime and the sub-sublime. Rossini, blessed with great casting resources, wrote the work for one brilliant soprano and a silly number of tenors — part of the reason it’s not performed much. Garsington has Jessica Pratt as Armida — a formidable-looking woman, her voice capable of coquettish languor and magnificent fury. But this is a fiendishly difficult sing, and her coloratura is worried by the dazzler passages.

The sweet-toned Victor Ryan Robertson has similar problems as an un-warriorlike Rinaldo. This leaves the prize for vocal showmanship for bass Christophoros Stamboglis, terrifying in his cameo as king of the demons.

It is in the moments of subtler dramatic tension that conductor David Parry and his singers excel. Armida and Rinaldo’s duet Vacilla a quegli accenti makes Armida’s over-easy amorous conquest both amusing and touching. The death of the knight Gernando, after some feeble stage-fighting, is marked with a shocked lament that chills the bone. The music of the magic forest is an intoxicating jam of dance and siren-song. Far from perfect, but well worth it.
garsington opera.org

Armida
Garsington