The cast of ENO’s Partenope, 2025 (c) Lloyd Winters
ENO / William Cole
The Coliseum, London, 22 November 2025
A week may be a long time in politics but three-and-a-half hours is a goodly while in comic opera. However, despite a convoluted, frivolous plot that is almost an insult to frivol, Handel’s three-acter about love and passion never outstays its welcome and Christopher Alden’s Art Deco-meets-Surrealism production, first seen in 2008, still holds the attention.
This is primarily due to Handel’s coruscating score, vibrantly rendered by the ENO Orchestra and their guest continuo trio, directed with a sure hand by assistant conductor William Cole, standing in for Christian Curnyn, who was taken ill mid-way through the opening night, and wonderfully sung by the sextet of soloists (no chorus required).
In the title role, soprano Nardus Williams dominates proceedings as the flighty Queen of Naples (the Greek name of which was Parthenope), the focal point of the opera around whom potential suitors swarm. She has eyes only for Arsace, brilliantly sung by former BBC New Generation Artist counter-tenor Hugh Cutting. This dismays the besotted, swooning Armindo, tap-dancing US counter-tenor Jake Ingbar, who throws himself around the stage and down the staircase with gusto, and the Prince of Cumae, Emilio – tenor Ru Charlesworth, returning to his ENO debut role from the 2017 revival, who even invades Naples in a vain attempt to win Partenope’s hand.
Katie Bray and moustache, ENO’s Partenope, 2025 (c) Lloyd Winters
As if that is not enough admirers, into the mix comes the shipwrecked prince of Armenia, Eurimene, as a fourth potential suitor. He is no such thing, in fact, but is Princess Rosmira, the jilted lover of Arsace, disguised for revenge. In many ways, Partenope is the story of how Rosmira finally eschews vengeance and wins back Arsace. Mezzo-soprano Katie Bray shines as the jilted, cross-dressing Fury who almost makes one believe in her false, Dalìesque moustache – discarded in Act 2. The cast is completed by bass William Thomas who revels in the comedic opportunities provided by Herald-cum-Chamberlain Ormonte, especially in the third act.
Fine as the individual performances all are, admirably supported from the pit, the ridiculous scenario is a drawback with a libretto a composer 200 years later would have set to music as an hour-long one-acter. Andrew Lieberman’s 1920s-ish stage designs still look good, consonant with the notion of Emilio as a personification of photographer Man Ray. Dramatically, however, this requires some suspension of disbelief: Emilio/Ray is present throughout, on one hand interacting neutrally with the cast, on the other as the bellicose prince trying to force the Queen into marriage. Even Partenope’s devotion to the increasingly wimpish Arsace, or, later, to Armindo seems more believable.
All conflicts resolved: the cast of ENO’s Partenope, 2025 (c) Lloyd Winters
Yet however unintentionally silly the storyline or – intentionally – this production entertains and engages, nowhere more so than in the title character’s “butterfly” aria, the emotional core of the opera. But is the Queen herself the butterfly of which she sings, flitting from suitor to suitor, or a moth drawn to a flame? The happy ending here takes that choice away from her, to everyone’s relief.
Partenope is sung in English with English surtitles. There are further performances on 26, 29 November, 3 and 6. December.