To the left: a tiled hot tub and mini colonnade. To the right: a show-home bar with felt-tip bright cupboard doors. Artificial grass fills the gaps. Welcome to Studio 3 at Olympus TV, home of Jupiter & Juno – reality television for those convinced The Only Way Is Ancient Rome. Or at least it was, until Juno storms off Love Island, leaving Jupiter without a co-star and the show’s producers with plummeting ratings.
That’s just the first few minutes of Rameau’s Platée in Louisa Muller’s new production for Garsington Opera. Rameau’s overture becomes the show’s title sequence (cue lurid graphics featuring posing deities, airbrushed clouds, gold horses). As played by the English Concert under conductor Paul Agnew, it’s a neat fit – Rameau’s fragmentary phrases crisp and taut, every bit the countdown to curtain-up.
