Dorset Opera Festival delights with Mozart – but Manon Lescaut disappoints

MOZART’s great operas are rightly considered among the finest works of the operatic stage and Dorset Opera Festival demonstrated again this year just why they are so loved and admired. Last year, in a scaled down post-pandemic festival, opera-goers were wowed by their first DOF Mozart – a sensual and stunning Don Giovanni. This year it was Die Zauberflote – The Magic Flute.
The brilliant English libretto, updated and moved to a circus setting, was witty and clever. There wasn’t a weak note anywhere, from the three clowns (usually the Three Boys) to the saucy Three Ladies and the mighty bass, Sorastro (a great performance from recent Royal College of Music graduate Ossian Huskinson.)
The Queen of the Night – here the star of the high trapeze (not to mention the high Cs) – was Hannah Sawle, prowling and snarling like a caged tiger, with the evil and lustful Monastatos (Aled Hall) as her knife-throwing servant.
The leads, dazzling soprano Jamie Groote as Pamina and Ted Black’s Tamino, with his gorgeous tenor voice, were convincing in every detail, and had real chemistry as lovers at-first-sight. The opera’s other lovers, Papageno and Papagena, were, of course, show-stoppers – Felix Kemp was hilarious as the love-lorn bird-catcher and Caroline Kennedy channelled Mrs Overall to brilliant effect as his true love.
Conductor Jose Miguel Esandi took the glorious score at an energetic and exciting pace and the whole performance was, simply, magic!

A flat Puccini
If Pamina and Tamino sizzled, the same could not be said for Manon Lescaut and Des Grieux in the week’s other opera. Sadly, this production of Puccini’s tragic opera, based on the Abbe Prevost’s 18th century novel, fell flat, mainly because of the lack of any kind of credible relationship between the leads. The situation was not helped by a production that many in the audience clearly found baffling (it was obvious if you knew the story or if you had read the programme notes first – but how many people actually do this?).
When a director has a Big Idea, one thing is essential; the audience has to get it. Director Christopher Cowell had a big idea for Manon Lescaut – set the whole performance within the prison ship which will transport Manon – and Des Grieux – to exile in the French American colonies. So the action is seen in retrospect by the spirits of two (silent) doomed lovers (actors Iona Crampton and Eduardo Nunez), who are on stage throughout.
On the deck of the ship, patrolled by heavily armed guards, little groups of prisoners huddle in misery. A ragged young woman is dragged on, followed by a priest (the Abbe Prevost, Tony Kent) and by an anguished young man. There is only a brief moment when the two ghost lovers actually touch, but their chemistry is palpable. The chorus of prisoners becomes townspeople, singers, servants and more, observing and interacting with the central quartet of Manon (the stunning soprano Anna Patalong), baritone Gyula Nagy as her gambler brother, Eddie Wade as Geronte, the old man whose mistress she becomes, and Todd Wilander as Des Grieux.
The absence of chemistry between the two leads – Des Grieux never seemed even to make eye contact with Manon – left a vast hole at the centre of the opera, which could not be saved by Patalong’s glorious voice and affecting performance, nor by Nagy’s fabulously pantomimic (but characterful) Lescaut. The chorus and orchestra, under conductor Jose Miguel Esandi, were on splendid form.

by Fanny Charles, Fine Times Recorder

Ballet Under The Stars once again enthralled three nights of sell-out audiences with a world class evening of ballet and dance in the quiet walled garden of Hatch House, transformed by the Covent Garden Dance Company – Fanny Charles reports

THREE years ago everything seemed settled – even Brexit was something we were going to have to live with. Then along came COVID and the pandemic and lockdowns and our lives changed dramatically … and then Putin invaded Ukraine and our government proved to be quite impressive on the international stage … but at home – not so much! Death, disaster, chaos – so many things changed beyond recognition.
What a difference three years makes. And how good to welcome back an event that has been part of the local arts scene for more than ten years.

Ukrainian chemistry
The return of Ballet Under The Stars felt wonderful, with its glamorous setting in the walled garden of Sir Henry and Lady Rumbold’s Hatch House near Tisbury, beautiful dance and delicious food. But even this perfect garden haven of art and fine dining has been touched by these massive, catastrophic events.
Two of this year’s dancers came from Ukraine, a poignant and powerful reminder of the rich culture of their suffering country. Julia Moskalenko and Stanislav Olshanskyi, principals of the Ukraine National Ballet, are beautiful, graceful and athletic dancers with a palpable chemistry which brought an added intensity of emotion to their two performances. Of course, our emotional response was deepened by sympathy for two gifted young people who are, on the one hand, free to practise their art, but, on the other, inevitably tormented by fears and worries about their country, their families, friends and fellow artists during the ongoing brutal Russian invasion.

But it wasn’t just a sympathy vote – these are world-class dancers who brought a taste of the music and culture of their country, particularly in their first piece, the Act 1 pas de deux, from Forest Song, with music by Mykhailo Skorulkskyi and choreography by Vakhtang Vronskyi.
This achingly beautiful work allowed the dancers to display both their physical and dance skills and their emotional connection.
Their second piece, Dancing Pergolesi (choreography by Radu Poklitaru) was similarly technically excellent, with a strong response to the Italian baroque composer’s Stabat Mater. Given the deep religious faith of so many Ukrainian people, this felt a particularly powerful interpretation of the tragic music.

A night of stars
The line-up of dancers included the always enchanting Ksenia Ovsyanick, this time partnered by Timothy Dutson. They interpreted David Dawson’s Voices pas de deux, set to music by Max Richter, and returned in the third dance section with an astonishing and provocative piece, Multiplicity/Forms of Silence and Emptiness. Choreographed by Nacho Duato, this has Dutson playing the “cello”– Ovsyanick – to the accompaniment of Bach’s Cello Suite No 1 in G Major. There is a strong connection between women and the cello and this work is both an interesting and subversive interpretation of a masterpiece.
Also back, to huge acclaim, was Xander Parish, delighting in The Sleeping Beauty Act III pas de deux with Anastasia Demidova, and then revisiting his 2019 showstopper, the technically dazzling and witty 101 (a kaleidoscope of classic dance positions).
New to the Ballet Under The Stars Hatch audience were the young Paris Opera Ballet dancers Hortense Pajtler and Nathan Bisson. They opened the evening with Flower Festival in Genzano, a technically demanding pas de deux choreographed by August Bournonville (music by Paulli), evoking the charm of a Fragonard painting. Their second piece was the exciting and contemporary Triade (choreography Benjamin Millepied, music Nico Muhly).

Compulsion and repulsion
With the long gap since the 2019 Ballet Under The Stars at Hatch, there was an inevitable break in fund-raising for the Dicky Buckle Fund, supporting talented young choreographers and dance education. This year there was only one new work commissioned by the fund – Opposites Attract by Fabian ReimAir, who also composed the music and danced the piece with Fernanda Oliveira. This was a muscular, visceral exploration of attraction, compulsion and repulsion as the two dancers pushed the physical boundaries of expression in dance. Their second piece was Three Preludes, choreographed by Ben Stevenson to music by Rachmaninov.
The final duo were Royal Ballet principals, the exquisite Japanese dancer Fumi Kaneko and the powerful and athletic Russian, Vadim Muntagirov – his jumps and leaps in the pas de deux from Le Corsaire were real crowd-pleasers, bringing gasps and cheers from the audience. The pair brought the evening to an elegant close with the Grand Pas Classique (choreography Victor Gsovsky, music Auber) – technically brilliant, if lacking the emotional bite of some of the earlier pieces.
It was wonderful to have ballet back at Hatch – a triumph for artistic director Matt Brady and his team, and a glorious evening for the capacity audiences over the three nights.

For Ballet Under The Stars in 2023, see Hatch House, or please contact 01749 813313 or [email protected]