La Calisto/Hampstead Garden Opera, Upstairs at the Gatehouse - opera review

Francesco Cavalli's delightful opera offers cross-dressing, a hint of same-sex snogging, a randy god, his jealous wife, and a fair maid on the verge of losing her virginity
Delightful sounds: Francesco Cavalli’s La Calisto
Nick Kimberley28 April 2014

For the first 40 years of its existence, opera was strictly for the Italian nobility. Then in 1637 the first public opera house opened in Venice. Having paid good money, Venetians liked their operas on the saucy side.

Francesco Cavalli’s La Calisto (1651) fits the bill, offering cross-dressing, a hint of same-sex snogging, a randy god, his jealous wife, and a fair maid on the verge of losing her virginity: Calisto herself.

By modern standards it's hardly risqué but Cavalli’s music has a delightful twinkle in its eye and feels quite at home upstairs in a Highgate pub. Hampstead Garden Opera’s orchestra is just eight players, directed from harpsichord by Oliver-John Ruthven, who maintains the music’s conversational flow: in Cavalli's day, opera hadn’t yet gone all operatic. Joe Austin’s production gets the story across with wit, clarity and minimal props; a glitterball is as extravagant as it gets.

The singers take advantage of the intimate space to ensure that Anne Ridler's Eighties translation (discreetly updated by Austin) hits home. In two alternating casts, most of the singers, like the players, are young. Some are still studying but what they lack in finesse they make up for in a willingness to act. In baroque opera, that counts for a lot.

Until May 4 (upstairsatthegatehouse.com, 020 8340 3488)

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