FIVE STARS

With affairs in Turkey prominent in the news, Garsington Opera offers a timely revival of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail and a first British airing — amazing as this might seem — for a Rossini rarity with another Ottoman sultan, Maometto secondo, as its title character.
In the case of the former, in fact, the ‘sultan’ Selim this time is not Turkish at all but a Russian — the squillionaire owner of a football club — and his ‘seraglio’ not actually that but a well-appointed gated mansion called Villa Seraglio. In its garage is a spanking new F-Type Jaguar in which the magnate — a non-singing role played by actor Aaron Neil — makes a spectacular entry.
Plot-wise the opera differs significantly from the original, with new comic dialogue — some of it decidedly cheesy — from director Daniel Slater, who gave us Garsington’s 2012 ‘leather and bondage’ take on Don Giovanni.
If the irreverent, not to say smutty, approach jars with some, there can be no denying the musical excellence of the production, under conductor William Lacey
Rebecca Nelsen excels as feisty Spaniard Konstanze, with Susanna Andersson as her fellow prisoner Blonde, and Norman Reinhardt and Mark Wilde as their respective boyfriends and rescuers, Belmonte and Pedrillo. That Ms Andersson is Swedish and Mr Reinhardt American is reflected in new nationalities given to their characters; Mr Wilde is a Cockney sports hack. Matthew Rose offers a menacing turn as captain of the guard Osmin, boss of a team of sharp-suited, gun-toting goons.
A much larger chorus, male and female, throngs the stage for Maometto secondo. They appear both as the beleaguered occupants of a Greek outpost of the Venetian empire, and the scimitar- wielding Turks who are besieging them (looking, as director Edward Dick   should have noted, a tad pantomimic).
The warlord Maometto (Darren Jeffery, right) has been amorously acquainted, under a false name, with Anna (Siân Davies), and now intends marriage in his true guise. This goes down badly with her, her father, the Venetian governor (Paul Nilon), and her boyfriend Calbo, a breeches role superbly sung by Caitlin Hulcup.
So wonderful is the whole thing musically — so innately Rossinian in the felicity of the vocal line — that one marvels at its near two centuries of neglect in the UK. Hats off to Garsington — and to conductor David Parry.

Garsington Opera
Until July 11
Tickets: 01865 361636. garsingtonopera.org