New York has had a Mostly Mozart festival for decades; London's, a baby by comparison, is in its second season. The unthreatening, amiably alliterative name covers four weekends of concerts designed to attract new audiences without compromise. It may not be as doomed as it sounds. Last year's figures were encouraging; this year there are some interesting items amid the more workaday programming, and, while the festival is trying to tempt younger, hipper punters by hiring younger, hipper soloists, it is picking them from the top rank.
By Handel rather than Mozart, Alexander's Feast was, at first glance, an odd choice for the opening night. The oratorio, premiered in 1736 and with a text by Dryden, tells of an evening at the court of Alexander the Great. Mozart's reorchestration, 54 years later, was an attempt to circulate Handel's music more widely. The result is a hybrid: the melodies and harmonies are unmistakably Handel's, but Mozart's sonorities, using the warmer sounds of the classical orchestra, are so pervasive it is hard to pin down which composer one is listening to.
Sometimes this is too much. One of the soprano's best airs describes Alexander gazing on the beautiful Thaïs, and Mozart's fussy orchestration obscures the wit with which Handel depicted the sozzled but smitten warlord. But it's a fascinating view on one composer's affection for another, and an era's attitudes to its art.
Under Jane Glover, this was a stylish, if slightly stolid, performance. Making up for some dodgy horn notes earlier on, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields played with poise. The men of the Sixteen could have been more roisterous in the drinking song, but the choir's singing generally was full-bodied, even radiant. The tenor Mark Padmore was as resonantly communicative as ever, though took a while to hit his stride. Gillian Keith's sparkling soprano solos were a highlight from the start. Only Stephan Loges seemed miscast, his baritone insufficiently weighty.
There was no attempt to tone down the sense of occasion. The singers, in white tie and frock, appeared knee-deep in foliage and cameras relayed close-ups on to screens. Afterwards there were fireworks. Window dressing it may be. But if it works, do we care?
