The Rose Opera Company
Apollo et Hyacinthus
Mozart
Rose Theatre, Bankside, London

 

These little companies are popping up like mushrooms now, often formed by current or recent students, a DIY response to the lack of other work: and yes, they do need more stepping-stones between music college and the professional world, as I've harped on about a some length. The Rose Opera Company comes with fancy Rennie Mackintosh lettering and an association with Shakespeare's eponymous theatre, next door to the Globe, which exists in the form of partially-excavated foundations half-open to the elements. The company performed Mozart's childhood opera on a raised platform to the side of the foundations, and it was freezing.
It's a fine sign of dedication to learn a latin libretto for an event like this (though a tour is planned). Not surprisingly, there were stratchy moments, particularly in the band, led with some spirit from the harpsichord by James Williams; best to ascribe these to frozen fingers, I think. Staging was accomplished by Eleanor Briggs, the company's founder who also sang Melia; 18th Century costumes, a throne, a carpet, a chap who looked like Monty Python's Death but turned out to be Apollo in mufti, and that's about it. There was an inevitable Blackadder aura, particularly with haughty lip-curling Zephyrus, but we got beyond that with some proper physical engagement from the singers.

This was a wholly creditable attempt, thanks to the singing. The star was Zoe Bonner's Hyacinthus. I've come across this singer before at Trinity College of Music, and she's a really rich, controlled soprano who is happily at home on stage and tripped through the recits with real communication.
This little opera is rather an astonishing thing, its forumulaic seria plot of instant love, death, rage and grief pierced by musical and emotional insights way beyond the composer's age, its Gluckian muse also striving for something beyond.
Georgina-Rosanna Murray's badass Zephyrus also acted up a storm and sang with a nice fruity mezzo, but the heart of the piece, and the place where you really see Mozart at work, is the grief-stricken duet 'Natus Cadit' between bereaved Melia and Oebalus. Eleanor Briggs had already demonstrated her clean, bouncy soprano in some Rossinian da capos, and Andrew Boushell a smooth, velvety tenor, and here they created some magic with this elegiac piece, accompanied by pizzicato bass and a serenely sad violin line. This evening undoubtedly had its school-play aspects, but happily went a way beyond that in its values and ambitions.