Orlando review – a confident romp through Handel’s flimsily plotted opera

Longborough Festival Opera, Moreton-in-MarshSinéad O’Neill’s production is persuasive and Beth Taylor’s performace as Orlando is extraordinary in this tale of unrequited love, madness and magicThe woodland outside Longborough’s theatre, deep in the Cotswolds, sneaks inside and on to the stage for its season-opening production of Orlando. With a story that sometimes seems little more than an excuse for a series of showpiece arias, it’s not an obvious choice for the festival’s first Handel opera in a decade, but Sinéad O’Neill’s production has confidence in the work and is persuasive enough to lead us through.The flimsy plot comes from Ariosto’s poem Orlando Furioso. High-ranking warrior Orlando loves princess Angelica, but she’s not interested; she loves Medoro. Low-ranking shepherdess Dorinda loves Medoro – but he loves Angelica, see above. The usual baroque-opera love triangles and noble self-sacrifice are absent, and what we have instead is the stuff of school lunch-queue gossip. Someone hears words that weren’t meant for them and jumps to conclusions; someone else has unwisely given away a special bracelet. Then Orlando cracks: he has an extended, musically arresting mad scene and then goes on a murderous rampage that’s cleared up by the presiding magician, Zoroastro, thus allowing for a happy ending.