The woodland outside Longborough\u2019s theatre, deep in the Cotswolds, sneaks inside and on to the stage for its season-opening production of Orlando. With a story that sometimes seems little more than an excuse for a series of showpiece arias, it\u2019s not an obvious choice for the festival\u2019s first Handel opera in a decade, but Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Neill\u2019s production has confidence in the work and is persuasive enough to lead us through.<\/p>\n
The flimsy plot comes from Ariosto\u2019s poem Orlando Furioso. High-ranking warrior Orlando loves princess Angelica, but she\u2019s not interested; she loves Medoro. Low-ranking shepherdess Dorinda loves Medoro \u2013 but he loves Angelica, see above. The usual baroque-opera love triangles and noble self-sacrifice are absent, and what we have instead is the stuff of school lunch-queue gossip. Someone hears words that weren\u2019t meant for them and jumps to conclusions; someone else has unwisely given away a special bracelet. Then Orlando cracks: he has an extended, musically arresting mad scene and then goes on a murderous rampage that\u2019s cleared up by the presiding magician, Zoroastro, thus allowing for a happy ending.<\/p>\n
Rseonant \u2026 Andrew Foster-Williams as Zoroastro in Orlando. Photograph: Matthew Williams-Ellis<\/p>\n
Andrew Foster-Williams\u2019s resonant sorcerer Zoroastro \u2013 bearded, and in a high, powdered wig \u2013 is almost our compere here: after all, lots of 18th-century operas require a moment of divine intervention, but not many need a magician to take the lead throughout. His three silent, crinolined attendants seem almost witch-like at first, and there\u2019s an enduringly uneasy side to this enchanted forest, with Anisha Fields\u2019s set of trees, bed and rusty spiral staircase lit in sunset tones by Ben Ormerod. But it\u2019s all more A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream than Macbeth. Serene and unblinking, the attendants wind a willing Angelica into a huge cat\u2019s cradle, and animate Dorinda\u2019s many wildlife friends \u2013 because in O\u2019Neill\u2019s vision there\u2019s more than a touch of the Disney princess about Dorinda, who dances with hares and sings to a puppet nightingale.<\/p>\n