ENO’s Xerxes: Opera on 3 Saturday 4 October

[doversoul1]

Tonight's Opera on 3 is Handel's comic opera Xerxes in Nicholas Hytner's award-winning production for English National Opera
[…]
Alice Coote as Xerxes, Sarah Tynan as Romilda and Andrew Watts as Arsamenes, with Michael Hofstetter conducting
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04k7t47

I can’t say I am too keen on operas in translation but the music is too good to miss.
Starts at 18.00

Synopsis
The contexture of this drama is so very easy, that it wou’d be troubling to the reader to give him a long argument to explain it. Some imbicilities, and the temerity of Xerxes (such as his being deeply enamour’d with a plane tree, and the building of a bridge over the Hellespont to unite Asia to Europe) are the basis of the story, the rest is fiction.The action takes place at the court of Xerxes.

Who writes this stuff? Or is this a quote from a historical document?

[MickyD]

I remember seeing this wonderful production first time round at the ENO in the 80s.

[Dave2002]

I remember seeing this wonderful production first time round at the ENO in the 80s.

Is this the same production? I saw the earlier one, which I think had Yvonne Kenny. The new version seemed a lot longer than I remembered it. I think I might have remembered the robotic waiters and their equally robotic customers too, so this did seem very different.

[doversoul1]

This has Yvonne Kenny in.
Bavarian State Opera Munich in July 2001

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-u66WC10hs

I think this is the ENO’s original
Ann Murray, Christopher Robson, Valerie Masterson, Lesley Garrett, Jean Rigby,
Christopher Booth-Jones, Rodney Macann,
The orchestra and chorus of English national opera-
Conductor: Charles Mackerras -
London 1988

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YUU8fWJq10

[french frank]

Or is this a quote from a historical document?

Exact. It is the programme note from the first production, apparently.

I last saw this in Budapest in a completely mad production where Xerxes kept appearing in a different mode of transport: dinky sports car, tank, aeroplane, ship ...

Very colourful - and enjoyable.

[David-G]

Is this the same production? I saw the earlier one, which I think had Yvonne Kenny. The new version seemed a lot longer than I remembered it. I think I might have remembered the robotic waiters and their equally robotic customers too, so this did seem very different.

It is the same version. There were robotic waiters. This is one of the best ever productions of a Handel opera. Handel operas do tend to be long!