I won a pair of tickets to Cavalli’s La Calisto performed by English Touring Opera at Bath’s Theatre Royal, thanks to a competition in the Bath Chronicle.
Cavalli has been chosen before by this company. La Calisto is his best-known work; it has plenty of substantial roles (Juno’s and Diana’s are as substantial as Calisto’s) and lively intertwined plot and subplots. It was sung in English but rather as in a silent movie each scene was introduced with the display of a single-sentence description.
The various parts were all well sung and acted, with Juno being our favourite. And some lovely period sounds from the pit, though the ‘organ’ sounded a bit fake. The production played up the comic side of the plot with ribald gestures (but what do you expect when there’s a satyr around?) contrasting with the rather dry libretto. The Heath Robinson-like set required considerable physical agility from the singers.
The performance was well attended, and as before I noticed that there is an audience that converges on Bath from miles around when there’s an opera on. Now I think there are few in Bath who know more about Greek mythology than I do, but I realised that I was among some seriously experienced fans of baroque opera, ready to compare performances of Rameau or Handel at the drop of a hat.