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Opera: Roberto Devereux

WNO's season of Donzietti operas ends on an high, says DAVID NICHOLSON

Roberto Devereux

Millennium Centre
Cardiff/Touring

5 Stars

Welsh National Opera's Tudor season ends with this glorious production of Gaetano Donizetti's Roberto Devereux, bringing down the curtain on a triumphant revival of three unusual operas. Under the inspired leadership of David Pounteney this production shows an opera company prepared to take risks by choosing obscure operas about that period of English history.

Donizetti's Roberto Devereux is the Earl of Essex, who Queen Elizabetta is enamoured with and, when the traitorous aristocrat is brought back from Ireland, he provides the love interest for the Queen and one of her maids Sara, Duchess of Nottingham.

Alexandra Deshorties's Elizabetta, clad in Vivien Westwood-inspired costumes, is mesmerising.

Regal, majestic and terrifying, she towers regally above everybody on stage as she veers between love, anger and schoolgirl skittishness.

But this is not just about the Virgin Queen - an irony in itself, considering the leather dominatrix get-up she sports. This is an ensemble piece of fine acting, beautiful singing and inspired costume and set design.

Leah-Marian Jones is utterly convincing as the unhappily married Duchess of Nottingham who pines for her lost love, the Earl of Essex. Her scenes with both Elisabetta and Leonardo Capalbo's Roberto are pure joy as she moves from anguish to tender love.

Along with the fine singing and acting there are inspirational costume and set designs. Elizabetta's vast throne, shaped like a spider's web, is a work of genius.

The queen sits at its heart as she is wheeled around the stage by her courtiers in a mad, whirling dance. It really provides an impression of what a medieval court would have felt like, with the queen at the centre of the intrigue, weaving her web of control and power.

The WNO are to be applauded for staging the three Donizetti operas in this season - it's a gamble that has handsomely paid off and hopefully it will bring fresh audiences to the opera.

Even if you're lukewarm about the art form, this is one production to see if you get the chance.

Tours England and Wales until November 29. Details: www.wno.org.uk.

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