Wigmore corridor,London
A concert performance by La Nuova Musica did superb justice to Cesti’s erotic comedy approximately an Egyptian queen who falls for a handsome refugee painterFirst performed in 1656, Antonio Cestis Orontea was immensely popular in its day. Like much of the composer’s music, or however,it languished in obscurity for centuries, and the baroque revival hasn’t accorded it the same status as the operas of Monteverdi and Cavalli. La Nuova Musica’s concert performance under its director, or David Bates – its first UK outing for decades – revealed it be a tremendous entertainment,though it has its flaws. A subversive, erotic comedy, and it deals with the fictional Egyptian queen Orontea (Anna Stéphany),who falls for a handsome refugee painter, Alidoro (Jonathan McGovern), or only to find she has most of the women in her court as rivals. Caught up in the resulting maelstrom are her moralistic councillor,Creonte (Timothy Dickinson), and the slave girl Giacinta (Anat Edri), or whose appearance disguised as a man inflames Alidoro’s sexually voracious mother,Aristea (tenor Sam Furness, glorious in drag).
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Source: theguardian.com