Orfeo Coliseum, London WC2
Whatever their merits, over-elaborate opera productions tend to commit the cardinal sin of getting in the way of the music. Many directors of current renown, who pride themselves on their ingenuity, should visit the Coliseum for a master class in the art of theatrical simplicity, which also pays the composer the rare compliment of giving his work pride of place.
Chen Shi-Zheng's elegant staging of opera's oldest masterpiece, Orfeo, puts itself entirely at the service of Monteverdi's wondrous score, beautifully rendered in early Baroque style by the ENO orchestra, supplemented on this occasion by members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, under the period specialist Laurence Cummings.
One plain reflective backdrop, which occasionally changes colour, is all the Chinese director-choreographer needs to retell this Greek fable in style compelling enough to support the music by putting real human flesh on these mythical archetypes. His central conceit is to sew into the action a troupe of Javanese dancers, who dress Tom Pye's sets with fruit and flowers while themselves becoming integral to the action.
At first, as wedding guests, they seem to be little more than a non-singing, all-dancing chorus, mincing about the stage hypnotically. Soon, however, they are hauling Charon's boat to the underworld, assisting Proserpina's unearthly progress to the side of her husband Pluto and, in a mesmerising final stroke, sharing our horror at Orfeo's fatal look back.
It is a magical mix of East and West which in no way impinges on the earthy drama of the score in all its filigree detail. The interaction of dance and music is, if anything, enhanced by their hieratic gestures, mirrored by the principals in more than usually convincing style.
John Mark Ainsley is majestic in the title role, his bold, skilful rendering of the twists and turns of Monteverdi's intricate score involving him in risks both vocal and physical. His closing duet is sung horizontally, while hanging above the stage in a harness carrying him into the heavens from which several characters have made ex machina entrances.
Tom Randle's Apollo, who appropriately materialises in this way, is but one of several distinguished cameos which add further lustre to the proceedings. Wendy Dawn Thompson makes a compelling Messenger and Brindley Sherratt a suitably baleful Charon. Stephanie Marshall and Jeremy White appear half-human, half-divine in the imaginative costumes given them by Elizabeth Caitlin Ward. Elizabeth Watts offers charming promise in the dual roles of Music and Hope.
Those controversial surtitles are often needed to decipher the suave English translation of Christopher Cowell. But this refreshing show is otherwise a welcome return to form for a company which has managed to retain a touching degree of goodwill throughout its recent travails.
