Tearing up the tulips: Ariodante at the Royal Academy of Music

By Charlotte Valori, 25 March 2014

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Reviewed at Royal Academy of Music: Sir Jack Lyons Theatre, London on 20 March 2014

Handel, Ariodante

Royal Academy Opera

Dame Jane Glover, Conductor

Paul Curran, Director

Robert Innes Hopkins, Set Designer

Rhiannon Llewellyn, Dalinda

Rosalind Coad, Ginevra

Anna Harvey, Ariodante

Angharad Lyddon, Polinesso

Ross Scanlon, Lurcanio

Samuel Queen, King of Scotland

Academy Baroque Orchestra

The Royal Academy's Carmen has too many what-if moments

Dominic Lowe, 18th November

Presenting a work like Carmen is a punchy move by a conservatoire. The Royal Academy of Music's production has conceptual weaknesses, but features some good singing.

***11

Royal Academy Opera stages a magical Zauberflöte

Mark Valencia, 18th March

A lyrical yet zesty account of Mozart's' adorable score, in a production that is on the nose and off the wall.

****1

A dystopian Hansel und Gretel at the RAM

Mark Valencia, 20th November

Jack Furness serves up an unappetising mess of Humperdinck's delicious masterpiece for Royal Academy Opera.

***11

Keeping it surreal: Martinů double-bill at the Royal Academy of Music

Dominic Lowe, 8th May

With typical spirit, the students at the Royal Academy of Music did an excellent job in bringing Martinů’s Comedy on the Bridge and Alexandre bis to life – two lesser-known pre-war surrealist gems.

***11

Unreal city: The Rake's Progress at the Royal Academy of Music

Benjamin Poore, 22nd November

Frederic Wake-Walker's realisation of the Hogarth-inspired opera is visually bracing and assuredly sung.

****1

Emotion and mayhem: a golden double bill from Royal Academy Opera

Stephen Pritchard, 18th March

Students triumph in Tchaikovsky's Iolanta and Ravel's L'Enfant et les sortilèges.

****1

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Charlotte Valori

Charlotte Valori read Classics at Christ Church, Oxford. As a classicist, her main interest is Greek tragedy and its reception by later cultures, which has led to a continuing passion for theatre and opera. Charlotte reviews for several online magazines, and won the Bachtrack Opera Award 2015 for Best Written English Review. Follow her on Twitter @operissima.