Resonantly, English National Opera dedicates this run of Handel’s Partenope to Sir Charles Mackerras, who would have been 100 this week. More than anyone else, Mackerras was prime mover of the ENO’s pioneering reimaginings of Handel’s operas. This Partenope, first seen in 2008, is a brave reassertion of that treasured inheritance. Sadly, though, the ENO itself is now a shadow of what it became in Mackerras’s day; its chief exec Jenny Mollica quit earlier this week.
Still, it remains cheering to see ENO can still turn in a high-class Handel show. In Partenope the characters may be classical staples but the superficially political plot is really more of a domestic comedy. Partenope herself, supposed founder of modern Naples, is being wooed by three princely suitors, one of whom, Arsace, is pursued by his former lover Rosmira, thinly disguised as a man. The maelstrom of passions and longings this gang can generate between them, though, are believable enough, sometimes searingly so.
