The Stage

Eliogabalo

Published Monday 8 June 2009 at 10:20 by Edward Bhesania

Written for the Venice carnival season in 1668, Cavalli’s Eliogabalo was censored before reaching the stage, owing to the subject matter of its eponymous teenaged cross-dressing emperor, who plots to murder his cousin Alessandro. The hedonistic sun-worshipping emperor is ultimately killed by his own henchmen, dragged through the streets of Rome and tossed into the Tiber.

David Fielding’s UK premiere production for Grange Park Opera plays up the opera’s themes of sex and violence. The emperor’s valet Nerbulone arrives as the biker from Village People, his newly formed all-female senate comprises pole-dancing Playboy bunny-girls and his servant Zotico is styled (unconvincingly) in the versatile dual role of boyfriend and pimp.

Lenia, the emperor’s servant in drag, is a mutton dressed as lamb nurse in a skimpy Clinique-girl’s uniform, and the gladiator Tiferne, clad in buckled leathers, could be the main attraction at an S&M club. It’s a titillating evening, but, save for adding a layer of gender-bending by casting the emperor as a woman (it would originally have been a male castrato), there’s little depth or darkness to the depravity. The violence, though well executed, is far-fetched, resulting in an overall impression of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert meets Reservoir Dogs.

The cast is mostly very strong, even if Renata Pokupic is physically slight for the emperor. Sinead Campbell-White (Gemmira), Claire Booth (Eritea) and Yvette Bonner (Atilia) are vocally impressive, Tom Walker drags up well as Lenia and Julia Riley adds a quiet vein of stoicism as the emperor’s cousin Alessandro. Driven by Christian Curnyn’s period-instrument Early Opera Company orchestra, the performance is a musical treat.