Handel’s Serse – with Paula Murrihy, Louise Alder & Rebecca Leggett – Academy of Ancient Music/Cummings

Handel Serse  
Opera in three Acts to an anonymous libretto after Silvio Stampiglia [sung in Italian with English surtitles]

Serse – Paula Murrihy
Romilda – Louise Alder
Atalanta – Rachel Redmond
Arsamene – Rebecca Leggett
Amastre – Claudia Huckle
Ariodate – Luca Tittoto
Elviro – Thomas Chenhall

Academy of Ancient Music
Laurence Cummings

With its title character, the unhinged tyrannical leader of Persia waging war against the West, Handel’s Serse (1738) could serve as a satire, in reverse, on contemporary events in Iran. Coming near the end of the composer’s prolific output of Italian opera in London (only two more were to come) the work defied its first audience’s expectations as to what a ‘serious opera’ should be. Rather than the embodiment of heroic virtue, Serse manically presides over a comical sequence of amorous intrigues and misunderstandings which makes a mockery of his pretensions as a mighty and awe-inspiring ruler in control of events (the typical central character of an opera seria) despite his military victories. With its inclusion of character types from the growing trend for opera buffa – the frivolous servant figure of Elviro and the flirtatious coquette Atalanta who is largely responsible for the near-farcical plot twists – the opera blends comedy with the prevailing form of serious music drama. 

The fairly small numbers of the Academy of Ancient Music on stage brought appropriate levity and leanness that especially emphasised the work’s comic strands (4.4.2.2.1 strings, a pair of oboes and continuo, alongside obbligato recorders, horns, and trumpet when required for some numbers). Laurence Cummings set the pace from one of the two harpsichords in a generally brisk account and clean attack on the arias which, as often as not, are more concise than the usual full-blown da capo type that is the structural building block of most of Handel’s previous operas. There was a clear sense of drive and liveliness without being hard-pressed. If there was a slight lack of contrast in Act One, it came to the fore in the first half of the Second as the emotional tensions rose among Serse, Romilda whom he loves, and his brother Arsamene who requites Romilda’s love. There, Cummings and the AAM instilled more furious energy to emphasise the dramatic conflicts at play which add gravitas to the opera, as well as Serse’s increasingly arbitrary domineering. 

In the title role, Paula Murrihy traced vividly the king’s increase in anxious control over the others, charting a clear trajectory over the course of Act One, starting with a dignified account of the famous ‘Ombra mai fu’. That led inexorably to the great effusion of emotion in the long and formal da capo aria ‘ ‘ in which pent up feeling finally found an outlet, although the furtive reprise registered as stealthy rather than decisive and honourable – and therefore an ironic take on the usual character of such an aria – since Serse’s infatuation with Romilda entails his betrayal of Amastre. If there was a slight metallic edge to Murrihy’s voice, there was no loss of control in her depiction of Serse’s hapless determination to win Romilda.

Louise Alder was a vivid, even volatile, Romilda, first establishing for the character a sense of allure and ravishing mystery by singing in a transport of quiet rapture, since she is heard but not seen by Serse (here from the top of the steps, away at the back of the stage). Alder subsequently developed the character’s ability to hold her own against Serse’s wiles with a more assertive and imperious manner in later arias, crafting the role as very much the opera’s prima donna who, against normal expectations, doesn’t end up with the primo uomo. Instead, in a fortunate misunderstanding by her father, Ariodate, she is married to Serse’s brother Arsamene as intended, for which Rebecca Leggett drew an apt contrast in her cool, beguiling manner 

The impressively cohesive cast was completed by three accomplished performances in the smaller roles. Claudia Huckle’s dusky, if understated tone made of Amastre something of a stalking horse to Serse’s attempts to disrupt Arsamene and Romilda’s plans. Thomas Chenhall was a winning Elviro, merging nimble comedy on stage with stylish singing. As Serse’s captain, Ariodate, Luca Tittoto brought an easy-going authority, not unbalancing the general air of irony and wit. Two unnamed male singers joined the soloists to bolster the concluding coro, presumably on the tenor line, to round off an enjoyable account of Handel’s masterpiece.