Laurence Cummings and The English Concert are equal colleagues in the drama. Towards the end they and the singers join together in a chorus for forgiveness from wrathful Neptune that goes straight to the heart. This production represents the best of the summer festival operas so far.
****
Richard Fairman, Financial Times
Those purveyors of Baroque brilliance, the English Concert musicians – including a brace of theorbo – take their place on stage, following a promenade performance through Garsington’s teeming grasslands.
****
Claire Jackson, The Telegraph
The players of the English Concert, meanwhile, add the striking colours of their theorbos, lirone, cornetts, sackbuts and the more familiar recorders, harpsichords, organ, percussion and strings to the colourful sound world conjured up in this extravaganza. It looks set to be one of the big hits of this year’s summer opera season.
*****
George Hall, The Stage
The remarkable English Concert have to manage with being spread out across the stage, with indefatigable music director Laurence Cummings at the keyboard(s) on the far stage right: how the players (and singers) maintained an all but immaculate unanimity suggested something akin to telepathy. Extraordinary.
****
Andrew Green, Opera Now
The music knocks your socks off… especially the case when it’s played at the level it was last night, by Laurence Cummings and The English Concert. The viola da gamba and pair of theorbos provided not just a platform but the heart of a whole sound world that transported you to a 17th-century court; cornets, sackbuts and medieval drums lent a festive air, recorders added vivid pastoral colour
David Carlin, Bachtrack
Garsington Opera’s wonderful L’Orfeo of 2022 was a hard act to follow, but this new Ritorno is yet another triumph
The English concert, led by Laurence Cummings from the harpsichord and organ, was an integral part of the production, onstage throughout and inseparable from the emotions being played out by the characters. Sergio Bucheli seems to be there whenever a top-class lutenist is needed and his vibrant, highly engaged playing enchanted the ear throughout, as did the harpsichord continuo of Christopher Bucknall.
Melanie Eskenazi, MusicOMH
Tickets for Ulisse are available from the Garsington Opera box office.
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