Musically, an evening of complete enjoyment: Olivia Fuchs’s playful ‘Love Island’ setting for Handel’s Amadigi in Buxton

Handel: Amadigi di Gaula – Tim Morgan, Hilary Cronin, Rowan Pierce – Buxton International Festival (Photo: Genevieve Girling)

Handel: Amadigi di Gaula; Tim Morgan, Rowan Pierce, Hilary Cronin, James Hall, director: Olivia Fuchs, the English Concert, conductor: Erin Helyard; Buxton International Festival at Buxton Opera House
Reviewed 20 July 2026

By turns playful and distracting, Olivia Fuchs’s production allowed a fine young cast to develop strong performances combining enjoyment and engagement with technical bravura

Handel’s opera Amadigi di Gaula (1715) belongs to a small group of operas he wrote when he first came to London and the exact form of his style of opera seria was not yet fixed. Like its predecessor Teseo (1713), Amadigi is based on a French source and there are tantalising hints that the original plans for the opera included French elements such as dancing. [see my article on Handel’s experimental early London period.] As it is, Amadigi has a freedom of form that makes it attractive to modern directors.

Olivia Fuchs has directed Handel’s Amadigi di Gaula for the Buxton International Festival at Buxton Opera House. We caught the final performance on 20 July 2026. Erin Helyard (artistic director of Pinchgut Opera) conducted the English Concert with Tim Morgan (replacing Jake Ingbar) as Amadigi, Rowan Pierce as Oriana, Hilary Cronin as Melissa and James Hall as Dardano. Designs were by Eleanor Bull with lighting by Ben Pickersgill.

Both Cronin and Morgan have form with this opera. Tim Morgan sang the title role with English Touring Opera in 2021 (directed by James Conway, conducted by Jonathan Peter Kenny, see my review), whilst Hilary Cronin sang Oriana in concert with the English Concert (conducted by Kristian Bezuidenhout, see my review).

Handel: Amadigi di Gaula – James Hall – Buxton International Festival (Photo: Genevieve Girling)

The opera has one of those ‘black box’ plots beloved of opera seria: the characters all confined to a single place. Here, four people in a love tangle: Melissa loves Amadigi who loves Oriana as does Dardano, all complicated by Melissa’s power as a sorceress. What elevates the opera is the extraordinary power of the music for Melissa and Dardano, both of whom are disappointed in love.

Olivia Fuchs’s playful production reinvented the piece as a sort of Love Island reality television programme, Melissa’s Island with Melissa (Hilary Cronin) as the host and the other three characters as contestants. Short video clips gave hints and there was substantial dumb show during the overture. But as the programme book gave the classic plot, audience members had to be quick on the uptake to align the opening dialogue with what was happening on stage.The opera was cut (a running time of two hours 30 minutes including interval) and divided into two parts with Part Two beginning with Dardano’s aria ‘Pena tiranna io sento al core’. Dardano did not reappear as a ghost and James Hall also sang the deus ex machina Orgando, here the TV programme’s producer. Part One was on the set of Melissa’s Island whilst Part Two was backstage.

Handel: Amadigi di Gaula – Hilary Cronin – Buxton International Festival (Photo: Genevieve Girling)

The problem with the concept was that in Part One, you never knew when emotion was performative, for the TV cameras, and when real. Melissa’s intense aria in Act One when she lament’s Amadigi’s unfaithfulness was superbly sung by Hilary Cronin, but was this real or performative? The change of location for Part Two at least meant that James Hall’s final aria was most definitely not performative. The ending relied on Melissa’s power over Amadigi and Oriana being related to appearance and social media presence rather than being a matter of life and death.

The production was also extremely busy, with things constantly happening and very few arias were allowed to happen on their own.

Tim Morgan sang with light, elegant tone, his passagework fluid. His Amadigi was a naif, things were done to him and the character never really got the sort of bravura moment that Handel would write for later heroes (the castrato Senesino, who created 18 roles for Handel, always insisted on at least one bravura heroic aria). It is perhaps significant that we first saw him hymning the night, with Morgan doing so with wonderful elegance of line.

For all that Oriana his the hero’s beloved, the key female role is Melissa. Here, Hilary Cronin, wearing an alarming purple wig and shiny fitted silver trouser suit, had a whale of a time as the manipulative television host. She made her tragic Act One aria really count, making us believe Melissa’s pain. Then in Part Two she went to pieces magnificently. Cronin’s voice has surprising heft and she brought real skill and vividness to Melissa’s music, performing with clear relish.

Handel: Amadigi di Gaula – Tim Morgan, Rowan Pierce – Buxton International Festival (Photo: Genevieve Girling)

James Hall attacked Dardano’s first two arias with wonderful gusto. There was little doubt that this Dardano was an action hero and Hall clearly enjoyed the sheer bravura of the role. It was a commanding performance that really cried out for a more sympathetic setting, crowned by an account of ‘Pena tiranna’ that was musical, intense and physically vivid. Hall made his return as Orgando, a totally different character, make complete sense.

As Oriana, Rowan Pierce was lumbered with a truly terrible wig (presumably deliberately). She had to begin as total airhead, but then develop real feeling when Oriana sees Amadigi apparently dead. As the opera progressed, Oriana’s feelings became more intense, though Olivia Fuchs leveraged this by making Oriana increasingly reliant on alcohol. Pierce managed all this with aplomb, showing remarkable range allied to great charm.

In the pit, the English Concert were on terrific form under Erin Helyard. We had some fine solo instrumental moments particularly the bassoon in Dardano’s final aria, and the trumpet duetting with Melissa in hers.

Handel: Amadigi di Gaula – James Hall, Rowan Pierce, Tim Morgan, Hilary Cronin – Buxton International Festival (Photo: Genevieve Girling)

The combination of the superb singing and the orchestral contribution meant that whatever the views on the production itself, musically this was an evening of complete enjoyment.