This joyous production by English Touring Opera makes the most of the music, the characters, and the alternately hilarious and unsettling plot of Handel’s early masterpiece.
Agrippina is an opera of balance and tension. It reverberates with memorable characters, yet relies on a layer of artificiality. It has moments of real humour, sophistication and elegance, yet examines the most basic human instincts with a coldly cynical eye. Gillian Webster is a brilliant Agrippina: strong, fierce, and indefinably charming. There is something unstoppable in her performance which makes her loveable, even at her most threatening; an engaging, conspiratorial naughtiness which reminded me oddly, but irresistibly, of Margaret Rutherford (who herself had a fasinating life, and whose Miss Marple films are one of my most treasured Saturday-afternoon treats).
For an evening of variety, excitement, intrigue, humour, and death-defying singing – you need look no further. Click here to read my full review on Bachtrack
A performance by English Touring Opera
