Erismena Cavalli Opera Theatre Company has reached back into the earliest decades of operatic history to present in four historic Irish churches a modern production of Cavalli's Erismena, a work first heard in Venice in 1655.
The first performance was given on Saturday in the atmospheric surroundings of St Werburgh's in Dublin, where Rodney Grant's brick-finished set dominated the church but provided rather cramped spaces for the singers to manoeuvre in.
The plot, a complicated tangle of class- and gender-crossing disguise and deceit, unravels with the aid of prophetic dreams and twice-unused poison to enable lovers and family members to realign their relationships with alarming speed and finality.
The OTC production by James Conway, using an allIrish period-instruments ensemble directed from the keyboard by David Adams, follows the edition prepared by Lionel Salter, conflating different versions of the work around an English translation of the libretto which has been dated to the late 17th century.
As Conway's note points out, words ranked higher than the music in the early years of opera. But it's the singer and the sound of the voice which come first in this OTC production. It was, for instance, very difficult to make out the response of counter-tenor Jonathan Peter Kenny's Erineo to the royal instruction to poison the captive Erismena. The words flew by largely undecipherable. And, sadly, the appeal of Lynda Lee's Erismena did not extend to the comprehensibility of most of what she sang.
By contrast, Andrew Slater's dark Erimante stood clear in inward thought and outward deed, in spite of some moments of uncertain vocal pitch. Emer McGilloway's Orimeno was not only vocally and verbally true but brought a sense of dramatic thrust that was rare in this production.
Robert Burt's pantomimecamp Flerida was not only the most alert of characterisations but showed a fluidity of inflection with word and music that was elsewhere in too short a supply.
It may well be that the presentation will loosen up in later performances.
