Recent reviews

18 January 2010, WhatsOnStage.com
Phaedra
Ensemble Modern at Barbican Hall
WOS Rating: ****

[...]

Henze was reportedly not altogether happy with the Berlin premiere of the work, in which director Peter Mussbach gave this chamber opera a flamboyantly abstract staging. Perhaps the composer (present in the audience) was happier with the simplicity of the concert staging at the Barbican last night, given by largely the same forces as in Berlin. The performance benefitted from an orchestra familiar with the work and a cast not reliant on scores.

[...]

Maria Riccarda Wesseling was the spitefully vengeful Phaedra and Marlis Petersen a slinky Aphrodite. The outstanding performance came from John Mark Ainsley as Hippolyt, mellifluous throughout and particularly affecting in his bewilderment on reawakening (a parallel experience with the composer who recovered from a life-threatening coma at this point of the writing).

The goddess Artemis is written for the counter-tenor voice (a staple, it seems, of contemporary opera), sexually ambiguous and sung here with gusto by Axel Köhler. The brief role of the minotaur was sung by Lauri Vasar and Ensemble Modern was conducted by Michael Boder.

This UK premiere was the crowning event of the Barbican’s Total Immersion weekend on Henze [...] In a year that will see more Henze presented in London [...], this was a fine way to celebrate a contemporary great, who earned that rare thing: a deserved standing ovation.

Simon Thomas