Young director Harry Fehr’s production of Orlando for Welsh National Opera looks like a revival of Scottish Opera’s 2011 production, judging by the earlier production’s photos and the same theatrical creative team behind the two. It is next to impossible to assess how much a different conductor (pioneer of the new wave of Italian early music ensembles, Rinaldo Alessandrini) and a new cast might have changed Fehr’s original take on one of Handel’s operatic masterpieces, but the fact that in Scotland it was performed in an English translation rather than the original Italian must have played an important role. On both occasions Fehr aimed for a realistic temporal and spatial transposition of the action into WW2 Britain. Orlando is a traumatised RAF pilot torn between his military duties and his love for Angelica, who in turn betrays him for Medoro, another patient in the hospital where the ‘shepherd’ Dorinda works as a nurse and the ‘magician’ Zoroastro provides psychiatric treatment. This is not a novel interpretation of the opera, with Jens Daniel-Herzog’s WW1 reading from Zürich Opera available on DVD since 2008. It is, however, an approach that works well. Sadly, war veterans suffering from PTSD must have been turning violent on their loved ones long before Ludovico Ariosti wrote his epic Orlando furioso, upon which the libretto of Handel’s opera is based. The composer has portrayed the knight’s physical and moral breakdown with great force of expression, but we often find it even more moving when this is coupled up with situations and characters that we can relate to more immediately, and the singing in English in Scotland must have enhanced this effect.

When increased interest in the staging of Handel’s operas emerged in the last quarter of twentieth century, it was fascinating how successfully realistic approaches were bringing them closer to modern audiences. This is partly because Handel’s operas often surpass the conventions of opera seria, first and foremost because the librettos he set were often older, incorporating elements of comedy and irony absent from the more serious librettos by Zeno and Metastasio. Orlando departs from this tradition even further in that its plot is not rooted in ancient or early medieval history (like most operas at the time), but in a Renaissance chivalric romance more in vogue for seventeenth-century opera, with its love for the fantastic and the magical. Handel was obviously fond of these elements, since he introduced the character of the magician Zoroastro who pulls the strings of the action, manipulating the characters – first and foremost Orlando – to overcome the irrational realm of madness and deceit in favour of rational self-control. To achieve this goal in the opera’s climactic ending, baroque stage effects and Handel’s imaginative setting provide support for a series of magical transformations in the pastoral landscape, accompanied by short instrumental sinfonias specially written for this purpose. Apart from this, the titular character’s growing madness is musically excessive and rough-on-the-edges, which is reflected in the toning down of the standard interchange of recitatives and tripartite da capo arias in the course of the second and the third act. For not only does Orlando’s singing thwart expectations in its formal irregularity, but the other characters are also drawn into this ‘musical madness’ of sorts, bound up in unconventional duets, trios or interrupting seemingly closed musical forms with recitative.

If the above mentioned traits that make Orlando unconventional on the level of opera seria in general and within Handel’s opus in particular, are interpreted as arguments in favour of a gritty, realistic reading that Fehr might have wanted to achieve, I would not object. Fehr’s take on the character of Zoroastro would support this claim and has some potential. Rather than the noble magician he appeared to be in the eighteenth century, in this production the experimentation with the lives of the characters often lacks moral ground. Aided by make-up making him appear older, bass Daniel Grice convincingly portrayed the self-absorbed psychiatrist who is more led by ambition than philanthropy. Not only does he postpone intervening when the increasingly psychotic Orlando is on the verge of physically harming others, but his electro-shock therapy in the last scene of the third act (the equivalent of the magic liquor restoring Orlando’ peace of mind in the libretto) does not seem to work: it is the knowledge that he hadn’t killed Angelica and Medoro that restores Orlando’s sanity rather than Zoroastro’s wisdom. Or does it not?

However, in this production Zoroastro’s musical and stage magic is glossed over without much else being offered in return. For a realistic reading of a chivalric opera set in idealised pastoral surroundings to work, it needs to be worked out with meticulous detail, and this was lacking in the portrayal of most characters except Zoroastro and Orlando, reducing them to mere generalisations. But whereas this does not seem to have harmed Fflur Wyn’s and Robin Blaze’s take on Dorinda and Medoro, who were well acted within the limited frame they had been given in the production, it reduced the interesting and somewhat contradictory character of Angelica to a caricature. The same way Dorinda is the opposite to Orlando in her melancholic (as opposed to his choleric) reaction to infidelity, Angelica is Orlando’s opposite in the refusal of moral responsibility for her actions on the grounds of the abstract ideal of love. This is where Handel’s music comes to the fore, for even though the interpretation of the character suffered because it was drawn in strokes too broad, Rebecca Evans was able to convey something of Angelica’s remorse-laden vulnerability in slow, pathetic arias such as ‘Verdi piante’ from the second act, even though their words might suggest the opposite.

Apart from consummate acting performances, a realistic reading rests on the evocative power of the stage to transform the audience with precision into a specific environment. Unfortunately, this was not the case at WNO with Yannis Thavoris’s set, Anna Watson’s lighting and Andrzej Goulding’s illustrative and somewhat banal projections. The visual elements were functional enough to set the action in a hospital, but failed to create a unique atmosphere, not to mention provide a feast for the eyes, which was baroque opera’s strong point. The production was at its most successful in the above mentioned portrayal of Orlando’s mental collapse, but as a comparison with Christopher Purves’ masterful creation of Saul at this year’s Glyndebourne Festival shows, stylisation can enhance the effect of Handel’s music as much as naturalism. An essential stage dynamism and a sense of being driven needed too much time to evolve in this production, and only by the third act did it have the audience caring for what happens to the hero struck by madness. Lawrence Zazzo’s measured acting proved instrumental in this.

A probable lack of evocative power might also be due to the musical aspect of the performance. It would be not only unfair, but also to a certain extent impossible to assign individual blame for this. The WNO Orchestra did well in adapting to an early music performance aesthetic that they are not necessarily well versed in, and the fact that they have worked with Alessandrini before surely plays a part in this. The Italian conductor and harpsichordist’s take on the score could be exemplified by a comparison of different readings of the trio for Dorinda, Angelica and Medoro at the close of the first act. Medoro’s earlier attempt to deceive the enamoured shepherdess being unmasked, the couple asks Dorinda for forgiveness, but she gently refuses their attempts to console her. Handel’s tempo marking, Andante larghetto, leaves ample room for interpretation. Whereas in his newly published recording René Jacobs proceeds quite briskly, giving the trio a sense of urgency that at times almost feels comical, William Christie slows it down considerably, imbuing the interchange between the characters with endless melancholy. Alessandrini is closer to Christie, but his reading lacked in gentleness and subtlety compared to the American conductor’s interpretation. The choice of tempi in Cardiff was also on the moderate side of the spectrum, but was often not compensated for by musical sophistication. Sometimes this was due to objective reasons, e. g. the replacement of two violette marine, instruments akin to the viola d’amore that Handel foresaw for the mysterious atmosphere of Orlando’s spellbound sleep scene in the third act, with standard violas, presumably due to financial reasons.

The feeling of a lack of interpretive verve might have been due to the singers’ contribution as well, the most unfortunate being Robin Blaze’s seriously underpowered Medoro. Daniel Grice as Zoroastro and Fflur Wyn as Dorinda were beyond reproach technically, but Wyn did not venture further than the lyrical in this only seemingly monochromatic role that has both more comical and more tragic potential to explore in musical terms. Out of all the soloists, Rebecca Evans projected her voice across the auditorium of the WNO most successfully, albeit at times in a somewhat shrill way. She also struggled with a few intonation problems, remaining nevertheless among the most expressive soloists. Lawrence Zazzo, another proven artist with a formed career, was at his best in the movingly dramatic mad scenes, but failed to impress with his rendition of virtuosic coloratura in the aria ‘Cielo! Se tu il consenti’ in the second act. In spite of the aforementioned choice of slower tempi, the performance did not exceed three hours by much because not only the da capo ornamented repeats, but also the middle sections of three or four arias were dropped. Wanting to avoid sounding like a purist, I think this can be fully justified if a convincing musical-dramatic reading is provided in return. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that the cuts were mainly due to a lack of directorial interpretive ideas, most of which were concentrated in the third act anyway. As a result we have a production that has been realised conscientiously and with professional integrity, but does not have the ability to enthral and enchant to the degree that Handel would have wanted it to.

Orlando completes its run at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff on October 7th, after which it will tour the UK until November 18th.