Mobile tiers of masonry served as decor for Claudio Valdes Kuri’s quirky production where modernistic hand-signalling formed much of the action and characters kept prodding each other to provoke irritated response while surtitles proclaimed baroque aphorisms such as “fortune favours the audacious” or “it is better to die than languish in servitude.”
At last, after the interval, it all came together in a seething, carnivalesque finale with the orchestra now on stage and the conductor, complete with music stand, constantly edging out of everybody’s way. Opera seria it wasn’t – it looked by now more like Ligeti’s Grand Macabre – but, with Montezuma on the brink of his death plunge, it fully exercised its not always impeccable international cast.
Star rating: ****
