✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper


Sign up by Email or Facebook.

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we sent newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Turning tips into memories

Get started Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Kids
  • Benefits
  • Membership
  • Get Started
  • Membership
  • Benefits
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Opera

Il Turco in Italia ★★★★★ review, Garsington Opera

26 Jun 17 – 15 Jul 17, eight performances, with long dinner interval

Prosecco all round! Opera doesn't come bubblier than this

By Claudia Pritchard on 27/6/2017

Hello sailors: Sarah Tynan's Fiorilla is in her element, in Il Turco in Italia. Photo: Alice Pennefather
Hello sailors: Sarah Tynan's Fiorilla is in her element, in Il Turco in Italia. Photo: Alice Pennefather
Il Turco in Italia review, Garsington Opera 5 Il Turco in Italia review, Garsington Opera Claudia Pritchard
Grab a Lavazza, sip a Cinzano, and slip back into the 1950s Italy of La Dolce Vita: Rossini's comic opera Il Turco in Italia is back at Garsington, and it's as fizzy and fruity as a Bellini.


Cheeky, flirty, knowing and brimming over with delectable music, this has to be the most cheerfully delightful evening on offer this year in a stupendous season for country house opera. Yes, there may be operas with greater depth, but Il Turco is not without its wisdom – in short, the grass is not always greener and truth is stranger than fiction.


With dazzling performances from the soprano Sarah Tynan, fresh from her virtuosic title role in English National Opera's Partenope, as restless, flirtatious wife Fiorilla, and from all around her, this scintillating production will win over anyone resistant to the idea of opera, and soften the heart of the most high-minded music-lover. Tynan, cinched into her come-and-get-me crimson Dior-style new-look dress, eyes widening with joy at the realisation that the fleet's in, turns in a performance to relish at every level.


As her boring-but-steady husband Geronio, baritone Geoffrey Dolton is all comb-over and indignation, while as sexy Selim, the Turkish prince of the title, dropping in on Naples, Dutch baritone Quirijn de Lang is so suave and amusing, slight limitations of vocal range are neither here nor there.


Overseeing the action – literally, from a perch above the seething streets – and occasionally manipulating the characters is Mark Stone as the poet with writer's block, Prosdocimo. This is a role Stone made his own when this production was premiered in 2011. Finding that his Neapolitan neighbours' love lives offer better material than he can dream up himself, the poet, like us, delights in every complication as love and lust entangle, and then engineers a tidy end.


David Parry conducts a gleeful Garsington Opera Orchestra and muscular Chorus, enjoying the allusions to Mozart, whose Così Fan Tutte, an opera Rossini knew, Il Turco at times resembles. The director is Martin Duncan, who does everything to keep the action racing up the fast lane. (Absolutely no Italian stereotyping there, or in this affectionate production, of course...)


Francis O’Connor’s Fifties design lets rip, literally, when Selim's boat comes into port. If it's Italian, it's in the show. If it's in the show, it's a joy. Drop everything and get to Naples prestissimo: it's just outside High Wycombe.


Il Turco in Italia is sung in Italian with English surtitles. Seats are available until 15 July.
by Claudia Pritchard

What Il Turco in Italia review, Garsington Opera
Where Garsington Opera, Wormsley Estate , Stokenchurch, HP14 3YG | MAP
Nearest tube Marylebone (underground)
When 26 Jun 17 – 15 Jul 17, eight performances, with long dinner interval
Price £35 - £200
Website Click here for more information and booking



Most popular

Culture to see you through the weekend
Things to do in London this weekend: 22 - 24 January
Olly Alexander in It's A Sin, Channel 4 (Photo: Channel 4)
It's A Sin, Channel 4 review
Your spring reading list is here
Best new books: spring 2021

Editor's Picks

Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Summer country house opera: a survivor's guide
    An all-singing, all-dancing version of the Cleopatra and Julius Caesar romance, Handel's Giulio Cesare, returns to Glyndebourne. Photo: Mike Hoban
Glyndebourne Festival Opera 2018
BBC Proms 2017: all the top picks to book
BBC Proms 2017: all the top picks to book
Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, directed by Fiona Shaw, returns to English National Opera in 2018. Photo: Robbie Jack
English National Opera, 2017/18: the operas, singers and must-sees
Popular baritone Roderick Williams is to make his Covent Garden debut
Royal Opera House 2017/18: curtain up on a whole world of emotions
Music until moonlight with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Canada Square Park. Photo: Peter Matthews
London Philharmonic Orchestra Outdoors, Canary Wharf
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

Garsington Opera

Rossini

Sarah Tynan

You might like

  • American soprano Heidi Stober sings the title role in Semele

    Semele, Garsington Opera

  • Ancestors look down on the unloved Countess (Kirsten MacKinnon). Photo: Mark Douet

    Le Nozze di Figaro ★★★★★ review, Garsington Opera

  • John Savournin (left) as Leporello and Ashley Riches as Don Giovanni. Photo: Robert Workman

    Don Giovanni ★★★★★ review, Opera Holland Park

  • Jive-talking in Opera Holland Park's La Rondine. Photo: Robert Workman

    La Rondine ★★★★★ review, Opera Holland Park

  • Lucy Crowe as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro at English National Opera. Photo: Alastair Muir

    The Marriage of Figaro review ★★★★★, English National Opera

  • The 24-hour party life turns sour in La Traviata. Photo: Richard Hubert Smith

    La Traviata ★★★★★ review, Glyndebourne Festival Opera



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • What is Culture Whisper membership
  • Corporate membership
  • Give a gift membership
  • Retrieve a gift membership
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×