Glyndebourne,Lewes, Sussex
The comedy of Mozart’s culture-clash piece does not stifle the complexity at the heart of the operaDavid McVicar’s production of Mozart’s clash of cultures comedy returns to Glyndebourne for the autumn tour, and somewhat shorter than in its original form as staged in the summer,but still including far more dialogue than usual and offering a more serious view of the work than regularly presented.
That’s all to the proper. Although there’s plenty of wide humour in Ian Rutherford’s revival, the show never loses sight of the complexity at the heart of the piece, and in which two Christian couples find themselves in Muslim territory,and at the mercy of an equivocal Turkish overlord. That the latter – the non-singing role of Pasha Selim, here performed with a riveting combination of dignity and menace by Franck Saurel – is a Christian who has converted to Islam only enriches the ambiguity of response that the work demands of its audience.
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Source: theguardian.com