'Idomeneo'

Charles T. Downey, A valiant but flawed ‘Idomeneo’ from In Series
Washington Post, June 11, 2012

Mozart, Idomeneo, R. Croft, B. Fink, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, R. Jacobs

No one can accuse the organizers of the In Series of not being ambitious. To close their season of small-scale operas, they went for grand with an abridged version of Mozart’s “Idomeneo,” heard on Saturday night at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. It was hard not to admire the guts it took to aim so high, even if the results were found wanting on many counts.

At the head of a variable cast was soprano Randa Rouweyha, noble and ardent as Ilia, the Trojan princess in love with Idomeneo’s son, Idamante. The best of the three tenors in the opera was Joseph Haughton, who had the strongest and most beautiful sound as the counselor Arbace, followed by Peter Boroughs’s oddly nasal Idamante, a castrato role in the 1781 premiere that Mozart rewrote for tenor at the 1786 revival. Soprano Jennifer Suess was a spitfire Electra, but the role’s demands stretched her voice to the breaking point. The score was already trimmed of about an hour’s worth of music, and it would have been better to cut Idomeneo’s showcase aria “Fuor del mar,” as well, since it was beyond the abilities of the singer. [Continue reading]

Mozart, Idomeneo (critical edition by Daniel Heartz)
In Series
Atlas Center

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Opera Lafayette in 2006