(Photo: Birgit Gufler)

One of the more interesting events at Innsbruck’s Early Music Festival is its Oper Jung production, cast with singers who took part in the previous year’s Cesti Competition and who, therefore, are generally in the early stages of their careers. This summer’s presentation was Händel’s 1734 opera “Arianna in Creta,” which relates Theseus’s quest to kill the Minotaur and thereby free Athens of its duty to send seven young men and seven virgins every seven years to Crete for the beast to devour. Obviously, however, as is the way with opera, the plot is far more complicated than this.

Arianna, with whom Theseus is in love, is being held captive by the Cretan king, Minos, as surety against the Athenians defaulting. However, unbeknownst to either party, she is actually Minos’s daughter. When Theseus arrives on the island, Arianna is delighted but is also saddened to see that her friend Carilda has been included in the group of virgins marked down for the Minotaur. The plot, now suitably thickened, is given a couple of added twists to ramp up the love interest. A young Athenian, Alceste, has fallen in love with Carilda, as too has the Cretan warrior Tauride, but Carilda only has eyes for Theseus. With plenty of scope for love, jealousy, heroism and conflict, the opera is ready to start.

Taylor Oversees a Dramatically Strong Reading

During the overture, the 14 captives arrive in Crete and are processed by guards under the command of Tauride. The director, Stephen Taylor, along with his team, comprised of scenographer Christian Pinaud and costume designer Nathalie Prats, having updated the drama to the mid-20th century, created a scene that was clearly a militaristic, totalitarian dictatorship. The guards treated the prisoners with casual brutality and pocketed any valuables for themselves. It immediately established the oppressive nature of the Cretan society, where the rule of law rested in the hands of one man and was enforced by a corrupt military. In such a system, terrors, such as the Minotaur, are very useful tools!

Taylor’s handling of each of the three acts was excellent. Everything that happened did so against this background of terror and oppression where violence, including murder, was commonplace, which successfully added to the dramatic tensions. When Alceste, for example, visits Carlida in her cell in Act two, he takes the opportunity to kill two of the guards in a very explicit and bloody manner before affecting their escape. Pinaud’s grey stage design, with its metal bars and doors, heightened the feelings of claustrophobia and oppression.

Act three was dominated by Theseus and the Minotaur prowling the labyrinth in search of each other. The stage was designed so that dark, flat angled panels allowed Theseus to roam around, allowing for fleeting glimpses of the Minotaur, while Taylor’s carefully designed lighting ensured that its shadow could be seen on the walls.

It amounted to a strong staging that carried the narrative in a clear, focused manner, promoted the dramatic tensions effectively and created some powerful visual images.

Many Shining Lights in a Relatively Inexperienced Cast

Soprano Neima Fischer, who was cast in the title role of Arianna, certainly looked the part with her elegant appearance and noble bearing, which she built upon with a fine acting performance. Her singing, however, was somewhat inconsistent, but it did steady over the course of the evening. In the first act, particularly, the balance between vocal beauty and expressivity was skewed in favor of the latter, which gave rise to occasional harsh, unpleasant outbursts. When at her best, however, her singing was very impressive. Her voice has a bright, clear quality with plenty of agility, which allowed her to embellish the line with beautiful ornamentations and indulge in pleasing passages of coloratura. There was also a natural musicality that underpinned her singing that was beautifully illustrated in her aria “Se che non è più mio,” in which she voiced her pain, believing that Teseo (Theseus) had betrayed her. She also has a strong, imposing upper register, although occasionally it can be a little unsettling as it has the ability to cut right through you.

The role of Teseo was given a compelling performance by the countertenor Andrea Gavagnin. He possesses an agile voice with a pleasing homogeneity that he used intelligently to craft an emotionally nuanced portrait of the Athenian hero. Recitatives were carefully moulded to bring out their full meaning, and the passage of accompanied recitative, “O patria, O cittidini,” was beautifully phrased with well-placed inflections to bring out his conflicted feelings and his longing for sleep. The arias, in which he displayed a wide range of emotions, were sensitively crafted and expressively strong. In the aria “Salda quercia in erta balza,” he asserted his determination to face the Minotaur, underscored by his bravura coloratura display and agile embellishments, while in the aria “Sdegnatasei con me,” he showed off his vocal control with his ability to craft delicately fashioned lines that captured both his sad disposition and inner strength. It was the aria “Qui ti sfido, o mostro infame!,” however, that really impressed from a dramatic perspective; as he searches for the Minotaur, he calls out his challenge, his voice passionate, forceful and packed with energy, as he unleashes a complex rush of coloratura, while the Minotaur prowls in the shadow before he confronts and slays it.

Mezzo-soprano Mathilde Ortscheidt, playing the trouser role of Tauride, swaggered aggressively around the stage, successfully bringing out his malevolent nature, which she supported with a fine vocal characterization. She possesses a colorful, well-supported voice, which she employed flexibly to promote her well-defined characterization. Recitatives were expressively and clearly rendered, while her arias were sensitively delivered to bring out their full emotional strength. In her second act aria, “Che se fiera poi mi nieghi,” in which Tauride allows his frustrations to boil over at Carlida’s refusal to succumb to his pressure, she infused the vocal line with colorful contrasts and dynamic accents that successfully highlighted his anger and impatience. Again, in her Act three aria “Il mar tempestoso,” she gave voice to his anger while also displaying her vocal agility with her delivery of complex passages of coloratura, moulded to reflect his temper.

Mezzo-soprano Ester Ferraro possesses a richly colored voice, which she used to highlight Carlida’s fears of the Minotaur and Tauride’s unwanted attention. However, her overall approach was too conservative; too often, her focus was on ensuring that her singing was correct rather than taking risks to reach and explore Carlida’s desperate emotional states. She would have benefitted greatly from being more ambitious, as she does have an attractive voice.

Josipa Bilić, in the role of Alceste, arrived on stage dressed as if she had just flown to the island by plane, like a modern-day knight in shining armor, come to rescue Carlide. She possesses a bright, agile soprano with appealing upper register, which she used to spin out delicious lines of delicate beauty which were both technically and expressively strong. Her Act two aria, “Son qual stanco pellegrino,” was probably the most dramatically powerful and shocking of the whole production: singing with a gentle and calm sensitivity that promoted clarity and drew attention to the purity of her voice, which she coated with a sweet and loving veneer, she coldly murdered Carlida’s two prison guards.

Baritone Giacomo Nanni, playing the roles of Minos and Sonno, had relatively few opportunities to show off his skills with only one aria to sing, yet nevertheless managed to impress. He was a suitably authoritative King Minos, delivering his recitatives confidently and clearly, which he shaped sensitively to convey their full meaning. His aria, “Se ti codanno,” was given a pleasing rendition, in which he successfully showed off the beauty of his voice and his ability in embellishing the vocal line. His Sonno was distinctly drawn so that there was no overlap between his characters.

The singers were accompanied by a sympathetic and supportive reading from the Barockorchester: Jung under the musical director Angelo Michele Errico.

It all added up to a thoroughly engaging performance. It was a dramatically and musically strong production, in which the relatively inexperienced cast excelled, and the audience loved it.