Il Giasone

The Royal Academy of Music at the Sir Jack Lyons Theatre

Anyone familiar with Euripides’ great tragedy would be hard put to recognise the story of Jason and Medea in Cavalli’s 1649 Il Giasone, even before John La Bouchardière’s Royal Academy of Music production puts a modern spin on it.

As a treatment of a classical subject, the mix of myth, pathos, tangled love stories and outright farce, with the odd serious moment thrown in, is a far cry from Cavalli’s opera seria Didone (his version of the Dido and Aeneas legend of eight years earlier).

Although, like most of Cavalli’s prolific output Il Giasone is rarely seen these days, it was not only the composer’s biggest hit but also the most successful opera of the 17th Century. As his tenth opera, it was also the first where the composer separated aria and recitative.

Medea is not the wronged party here; rather she’s the other woman, with an avenging Donna Elvira, twin babies in tow, hard on Jason’s tail. Kate Symonds-Joy is a sexy, whip-cracking Medea who could eat this Jason (boyish counter-tenor Roderick Morris) for breakfast and again for dinner. Nina Lejderman is equally forthright as the deserted wife and mother Isifile, touching in her final lament.

La Bouchardière peoples the stage with a variety of types from the drag nurse (a tradition familiar from Monteverdi’s Poppaea and Cavalli’s own La Calisto), played with stylish fun by baritone Jonathan McGovern, a nerdy private investigator (Marcus Farnworth’s Oreste) to a trampy Demo in Alexander Sprague, who might well sell you a used copy of the Big Issue plucked from the nearest bin.

There’s very strong support from Laurence Meikle as an upright Ercole, in officer and gentlemen sailor whites, and another counter-tenor Russell Harcourt, in a far too brief appearance as the spirit Volano.

The RAM are very fortunate in having the early music specialist Jane Glover (who once wrote a biography of Cavalli) as Director of Opera and she leads her compact band from the keyboard in a skipping account of the glorious score, with a great sense of improvisational fun. Hopefully her presence at the Academy will mean the unearthing of more baroque treasures in coming years.

The direction by La Bouchardière, whose The Full Monteverdi was acclaimed on stage and screen, is on the polite side. It would be nice to see them get down and dirty, a bit more House of Atreus than Picnic at Henley, although Magali Gerberon’s costumes are splendidly refined.

This composer is always a joy and this clipped version, coming in at something over two hours, is well worth seeing at its second of only two performances.

Il Giasone plays at the Sir Jack Lyons Theatre, Marylebone Road on 7 May. Details at www.ram.ac.uk