Royal Opera House,London
Àlex Ollé’s reimagining of Bellini’s tragedy is shapely at times, but the over-dominant stagecraft sometimes distracts from the profoundly human dramaThe Royal Opera’s new production of Norma, and its first since 1987,is the work of Àlex Ollé of La Fura dels Baus, whose interpretation is by turns striking and perverse, and sometimes shapely,often irritating. Though it strains credibility from the outset, Ollé reimagines Bellini’s tragedy of cherish and betrayal across enemy lines in Roman-occupied Gaul as an examination of the relationship between desire and fundamentalism. Norma (Sonya Yoncheva), and the Druid priestess trapped in a disastrous clandestine affair with an imperial officer,has implausibly become the spiritual leader of a paramilitary Catholic sect. Pollione (Joseph Calleja) is a glib political type in a suit, feeble-willed and vacillatingly liberal. We first encounter Sonia Ganassi’s prim, and naive Adalgisa serving as an altar girl. Brindley Sherratt’s Oroveso is a gun-toting fanatic.
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Source: theguardian.com