Weber
Oberon – Opera in three Acts to a libretto by James Robinson Planché with a new verse narration by Timothy Knapman [sung and spoken in English with English surtitles]
Oberon – Nicky Spence
Reiza – Jennifer Davis
Sir Huon of Bordeaux – John Findon
Sherasmin – Yannick Debus
Fatima – Rachael Wilson
Puck – J’Nai Bridges
Mermaids – Charlotte Bowden & Jessica Cale
Narrator – Tamsin Greig
Monteverdi Choir
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
Sir Mark Elder
Emma Doherty – Stage director
Reviewed by: Curtis Rogers
Reviewed: 6 August, 2026
Venue: Royal Albert Hall, London
2026 marks the 200th anniversary of Carl Maria von Weber’s death in London, and of his last opera, Oberon (the premiere of which he just managed to oversee in the capital). But you wouldn’t know that from any opera company in the UK, even from the present-day institution at Covent Garden where Oberon was first seen, despite the composer’s seminal importance in the development of German Romantic opera – Wagner’s work is unthinkable without Weber’s legacy. (Der Freischütz, the most revered of his stageworks, was last heard at the Royal Opera House in a concert performance in 1998, and not staged since 1977. According to their database, Euryanthe has never been staged there, and Oberon not since 1826.)
It fell to the Proms then to mount a semi-staging of that Shakespeare-inspired Singspiel in English, whose scenario starts with another quarrel between the king and queen of the fairies as in A Midsummer Night’s Dream – in this case on the age-old question, to be put to proof, as to whether man or woman is the more faithful in love. A fantasy tale ensues, in which a knight of Charlemagne, Sir Huon, is sent to kill the Sultan of Baghdad’s right-hand man Babekan and woo his daughter, Reiza, who is set to marry Babekan despite her wishes. Further trials by shipwreck and capture by pirates make it a picaresque story that is less Shakespearean than something like a cross between Orlando furioso and the Arabian Nights, given that the Sultan concerned is Harun al-Rashid. With the assistance of a musical amulet given to Huon by Oberon, the opera could be subtitled ‘The Magic Horn’, and there is also the influence of Mozart’s similarly named Singspiel.
That sprawling narrative, couched in what is widely condemned to be little more than doggerel verse by James Robinson Planché, almost certainly benefits from some streamlining. Timothy Knapman’s new plot narration didn’t entirely aid the work’s cause overall, however – for all Tamsin Greig’s lively delivery – since it left the musical numbers and the named characters who perform in them in loose connection with each other, like a string of pearls, and not directly integrated with the drama channelled to the audience via the spoken narration. In principle that narration in verse maintained a certain rhetorical style to match the heightened emotions of a musical setting. But its often deliberately corny rhymes and informal vernacular wit registered as a somewhat smug satire on the original, that was at odds with the generally solemn, or at least earnest, nature of Weber’s music. There are elements of pantomime but, in some choruses in particular, the levity of the orchestra’s pacing and textures, and the verbal and musical rhythms allied with swaying by the choir, made those sections seem more like Gilbert and Sullivan. The action of this semi-staging flowed naturally on the stage around the orchestra, but everyday, contemporary dress (with a few theatrical modifications only really on Oberon and Huon’s parts) mitigated against real stylistic flair or dramatic concept, even if it saved the embarrassment of outdated Orientalism elsewhere.
With the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, Sir Mark Elder set a balanced, orderly background: the quiet, even reticent opening section of the Overture (with slightly husky solo horn from the organ loft) established the dream-like, rarefied world of the fairies who guide the opera’s plot, contrasting with more alacrity as it unfolds among the human characters. Strings without vibrato didn’t give full flesh and blood life to the latter; woodwind and brass imparted richer sonorities instead. The score here wasn’t so much a prognostication of Wagner as of Berlioz.
The male singers tended more to caricature in their hefty portrayals – Oberon declaimed colourfully by Nicky Spence; a hearty Huon by John Findon (standing in for Charles Castronovo) whose upper notes were squeezed somewhat; and Yannick Debus a comic Sherasmin, Huon’s squire. Jennifer Davis as Reiza and Rachael Wilson as her attendant Fatima brought a more natural, refined sentiment, especially the former in the well-known aria ‘Ocean, thou might monster’ reminding us that, for all the absurdity of the narrative, a sincere moral temper underlies this music, not melodrama. Standing in for Jasmin White, J’Nai Bridges brought a smoky, shadowy tone of mystery to the part of Puck, rather than mercurial lightness alone. The Monteverdi Choir were enthusiastically committed in their varied and vivid guises. In general, musical performances were decent, but not all elements quite cohered so that the whole project lacked the vital quality of enchantment that is so central in this operatic fantasy that takes its cue from Shakespeare’s play.
Read Rob Pennock’s review of this concert here