Opera, Ballet, Theatre, ...
After UCOpera’s production of a Rameau work last year, which suffered from over-ambitious direction that didn’t gel, I was unsure what this year’s I Lombardi would be like. I need not have worried — it was terrific. Suits of armour and chain mail are expensive, so director Jamie Hayes has updated it to warring gangs …
Each year University College Opera produces a little-performed opera from the past, and this year it was by the pre-eminent composer of eighteenth century French opera, Jean-Philippe Rameau. This particular opera was originally commissioned for the royal household to celebrate the birth of an heir to the heir to the throne, incongruously tacked on to the …
In the end, Gaston admits that the original Don Pinto, who seemed to have gate-crashed the wedding party, is in fact the real one, and the astonished Gomez then turns to Gaston and says, “but you’re Don Pinto”. “So there are three Don Pintos!” says the astonished father, giving us the title of the opera …
University College London have done a superb job of staging this work, continuing a tradition of putting on a relatively obscure opera every year for over half a century.
Altogether this was well worth seeing, and I applaud University College Opera for putting it on.
