Hearing Handel's operas through various opera productions over the past couple of months, I find the music very beautiful and like with Guilio Cesare and Rodelinda the stories generally compelling. This production of Tamerlano, directed by Graham Vick, was very good to me. The 2001 production is superior with more varied production values and a cast perhaps more suited to the roles in the opera. However, I would definitely say this production is worth watching. The costumes do look very nice, and the sets while perhaps not the most ideal of all settings for a Handel opera are hardly ugly either. There is some symbolism here that I didn't really get, such as the silent groupies that would accompany some of the singing, but the drama apart from perhaps Leone never really felt static. The orchestral playing is stylish and suitably sensitive when it needs to be, and Paul McCreesh's conducting suitably forceful. Monica Bacelli is an expressive Tamerlano, vocally she's vibrant even if the more colouratura elements are not as focused as they were in the earlier performance and dramatically while occasionally over-doing some of the gesturing it is very characterful. Apart from some garbled runs in Act 1, Placido Domingo's Bejazet is splendid, the vocal drama is all there and he is very moving in his final scene. Sara Mingardo is perhaps the most consistent of the principals as Andronico, her voice is beautiful and has plenty of vocal flexibility, while she also hits just the right amount of intensity. Ingela Bohlin's Asteria is full of pathos, I also liked how she could make some of her high notes float. Jennifer Holloway as Irene starts off unsteady but improves significantly later on. In fact of the singing, the disappointment was the Leone of Luigi DeDonato, his acting is very stand-and-deliver, you could tell he was reaching for his high notes in Amor Dà Guerra and overall I found his voice too light-weight for the role. In a nutshell though, I enjoyed it very much. 8/10 Bethany Cox
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