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| Bellini: La straniera - Helena Dix acknowledging applause at Chelsea Opera Group performance Cadogan Hall (Photo: c/o Helena Dix) |
Bellini: La straniera; Helena Dix, Thomas Elwin, Georgia Mae Bishop, Dan D'Souza, Chelsea Opera Group, Stephen Barlow; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed 1 June 2025
Bellini's second big hit; a rather strange story brought alive by the bel canto ardency of Helena Dix finely supported by a terrific line up of talent
La straniera was Bellini's fourth opera, coming after the success of Il Pirata at La Scala in Milan moved Bellini from a local celebrity in Naples to a national celebrity. For La Straniera, Bellini was working again with the librettist of Il Pirata, Felice Romani. Bellini and Romani would go on to collaborate on all of Bellini's subsequent operas except for his final one, I Puritani. Romani is regarded as the best Italian librettist between Metastasio and Boito, he wrote for everyone but was incredibly busy. The partnership with Bellini was not without problems, and following Il Pirata you sense Bellini taking time to hit his stride.
After La straniera, Bellini and Romani would revise Bellini's second opera as Bianca e Fernando to mixed results. Their next collaboration, Zaira was a failure and much of the music ended up in I Capuleti e i Montecchi which was an unqualified success. After this came La sonnambula and Norma and the rest, as they say, is history.
As for La straniera, it premiered in 1829 at La Scala, Milan going on to be performed all over Italy as well as in London, Vienna, Paris, New York and Lisbon. The last known performance seems to have been in 1875, and the opera was only revived at La Scala in 1935. 20th century performances remained rare, often linked to a particular soprano. Stagings seem to be even rarer and Christoph Loy's 2013 production for Zurich Opera has had a couple of revivals. In London, Opera Rara presented the work in concert in 2007 in association with their recording with David Parry conducting and Patrizia Ciofi in the title role.
On Sunday 1 June 2025, Chelsea Opera Group gave Bellini's La straniera a most welcome concert performance at London's Cadogan Hall. Stephen Barlow conducted, with Helena Dix as Alaide, known as la straniera, Thomas Elwin as Arturo, Dan D'Souza as Valdeburgo, Georgia Mae Bishop as Isoletta, Will Diggle as Osburgo, Thomas D Hopkinson as the Prior and Kevin Hollands as Count Montolino.
Romani and Bellini based their plot on based on the novel L'Étrangère by popular French novelist Charles-Victor Prévot, vicomte d'Arlincourt. The novel is centred around the complex marital history of the French king, Philippe Auguste (1165-1223) but Romani and Bellini introduced a few extra twists to an already unlikely scenario. The result is a drama which requires more than the usual suspension of disbelief, but in the title role creates a prototype for some of Bellini's other heroines, lone women struggling. In La straniera, Alaide loves Arturo but she is living in disguise being the rejected wife of the king. Unknown to her, her brother, also in disguise as Valdeburgo, is watching over her but he is also friends with Arturo. The resulting plot includes Alaide and Valdeburgo's meeting, Arturo's jealousy because he thinks they are lovers, Valdeburgo's apparent death, Alaide's trial and collapse into mental instability. Oh, and Arturo's off-again on-again wedding with Isoletta.
The result however, provides Bellini with a powerful final scene for Alaide where the composer experiments with a technique he perfected in Norma. Instead of the final grand set piece, typically a rondo in tragic operas, he uses a series of apparently disconnected lyric pieces, creating a powerful depiction of the collapse of Alaide's reason.
Helena Dix has sung a whole series of roles for Chelsea Opera Group including recently the title role in Bellini's Norma in 2018 [see my review], Elisabetta in Donizetti's Roberto Devereux in 2021 [see my review] and Vitellia in Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito in 2023 [see my review]. Having been based in London she is now moving back to her native Australia so we must assume her London appearances will, alas, be fewer.
Initially, we saw Alaide only in the context of other people. Her first entry was a duet with Thomas Elwin's Arturo, where Dix successfully suggested the conflicted nature of the character, committed to another but in love with Arturo. The duet was powerful stuff and we sensed Bellini experimenting with what was possible as he interrupted the musical flow with dramatic recitative. Tension continued and when Dix returned to the stage it was for a taut trio with Elwin and Dan D'Souza's Valdeburgo, where Alaide and Valdeburgo have recognised each other but not told Arturo of their true relationship. Go figure. Act One ends with Valdeburgo's apparent death. As Alaide collapses there was a powerful moment, with Dix giving it her all but this was only tiny. Act Two opened with Alaide's trial and Dix every inch the wronged queen. In the subsequent scene we are told that she has mentally collapsed but we do not see this and the role only properly came alive in the final scene when Alaide is finally allowed her own voice. Her Dix successfully brought out the part's echoes of Norma and made the evening worthwhile.
As the man in love with Alaide, Thomas Elwin was really on a hiding to nothing. Essentially a two timing shit and a monomaniac, and a bit dim to boot, Elwin successfully brought a sense of heroic tone and nobility to the role. He sang Gennaro in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia with English Touring Opera in 2023 [see my review] and has the requisite ability to combined powerful line with expressive complexity. His tone gave Arturo a welcome heroic edge, though perhaps his Arturo lacked an element of desperation. But it did mean that in the Act One trio, with Dix and D'Souza, Elwin brought out the emotions rather than making you think Arturo was just dim. In Act Two, he and Dix had a terrific duet where they half-reconcile (it rather made me think of the Wolf's Crag scene in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor). At the end, Arturo cannot take it and Elwin made a fine, conflicted bridegroom being urged to marry another by the woman he loves. But though Arturo kills himself, by now Bellini is interested in his heroine, and Elwin had to make the most of a musically thin end. But overall, a fine heroic performance.
As the woman Arturo is supposed to marry, Isoletta, Georgia Mae Bishop had the advantage that Bellini and Romani gave her a surprising amount to do. Apart from the finale scene, Isoletta and Alaide do not meet, and Bellini keeps them separate musically, as Isoletta receives purely traditional music. Bsihop opened the opera with duet with D'Souza and an ensemble exploring Isoletta's unhappiness. The music more conventionally ornamental yet Bishop successfully brought out the character's sadness. Isoletta then disappeared till the penultimate scene where she had a cavatina and cabaletta, the first lamenting and the second rejoicing as she learns the wedding will go ahead. Foolish woman. But Bishop really leaned into the music and gave us a joyous conclusion. In the final scene, Isoletta got little more than recitative but here she turned surprisingly feisty and Bishop gave as good as she got.
Valdeburgo is hardly the most admirable of characters, lurking around near his sister but not telling her, lying to his friend Arturo. Dan D'Souza sang with admirable firmness and flexibility, displaying a nice feel for the style. Musically he provided a thread running through the opera, always virile and strong, admirable even when being two faced, and all sung with a terrific sense of style. His aria at the end of the trial scene, attempting to persuade Alaide to come away with him, was profoundly moving, whilst his subsequent duet with Elwin where they reconcile was surprisingly complex.
The other roles were smaller but well taken. Will Diggle was Osburgo, Count Montolino's henchman and a rather conniving character. Diggle made the most of his small opportunities. As the Prior of the Knights Hospitaller, responsible for trying Alaide for the death of her brother, Thomas D Hopkinson brought a fine sense of authority and the suggestion that character could be something more, whilst Kevin Hollands had the small but important role of Count Montolino.
An important element in the setting is the local people's distrust of Alaide, notably her habit of floating on the lake in her boat wearing a veil. and they think her a witch. The Chelsea Opera Group chorus really leaned into this, creating some vividly angry scenes. But this leads us to one of the serious problems with this performance. Bellini's score (with its horns, and full brass section) has its noisy elements. Conductor Stephen Barlow led an admirably non-invasive account of the music, giving the singers plenty of scope for shaping and rubato. But he also allowed the chorus and orchestra their head, which meant this was a very loud performance.
In full ensembles, soloists could not always be heard and in the accompanied recitative the orchestral contribution was so strong that the soloists sang rather more fully than was ideal. Orchestrally the score offered only a few moments to challenge the orchestra, its role was mainly to provide colour and support to the singers.
Bellini's La straniera is never going to be a repertoire piece and it is of interest mainly for the light it sheds on Bellini's later operas, but in Helena Dix it had an ardent champion of the leading role, admirably supported by a strong cast led by Stephen Barlow.
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