Venus and Adonis

The faded beauty of Wilton’s Music Hall was the perfect setting for Transition Opera’s celebration of love, cannily scheduled to end its run on St Valentine’s Day. Romance was at the core of the programme, with 16 love songs by Henry Purcell played alongside John Blow’s gorgeous Venus and Adonis, a self-styled “masque for the Entertainment of the King.”

The king was Charles II and the year 1682. Opera was in its infancy – Blow’s pupil Purcell was to write his ground-breaking Dido and Aeneas seven years later. The explosion of licence that followed the Restoration allowed composers to move the art-form on and in Venus and Adonis we have a transitionary work, lying between the hotch-potch of text, dance and spectacle that was masque and the more narrative-driven operas that Purcell was to pioneer.

A multi-media approach typifies the masques of the time and director/designer Netia Jones seized on this, using her background as a video artist to combine crisp visuals with dance and song. The use of video in opera is starting to look a little old hat now but Jones does it so stylishly that it still looks fresh and exciting.

The evening began with a speed-dating tour through the Purcell love-songs, under the watchful eye of Andrew Radley’s yellow-cardiganed overseer (later to fully emerge as a fluffy Cupid in the second piece). Six singers worked their way through the 16 songs – some short, some a little longer – as the participants moved from table to table in search of lasting love.

There was the cocky confident type (Dawid Kimberg), who ended up with two girls, a boyish shy one (Andrew Davies) drowning his inadequacy in drink, the long-winded bore (Kevin Kyle) and a radiant melancholy solo by soprano Katherine Manley, whose “O Solitude” was a heart-melter.

The meat of the evening was Blow’s take on Ovid, the sad tale of Adonis’ demise by boar under the loving eye of his goddess. Manley was outstanding as Venus, sweet-toned and very moving in her final lament. Kimberg, Radley and the remaining singers gave strong support and Jones and her associates excelled themselves with bags of wit and invention. Early music specialist Christian Curnyn led a fine period performance from the keyboard.

A delightful evening from a company that demands attention from any serious operagoer. Their future programmes of Handel, Stravinsky and Kurtág/Ligeti/Monteverdi (especially appealing) should not be missed.

– Simon Thomas