Powerful moments: Paul Wingfield directs Chelsea Opera Group in an impressive account of Mozart’s Idomeneo with Andrew Henley & Eleanor Dennis

Mozart: Idomeneo; Andrew Henley, Eleanor Dennis, Lorena Paz Nieto, Frances Gregory, Sean Tester, Chelsea Opera Group, Paul Wingfield; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed 21 June 2026

Some powerful individual performances contribute to an account of the opera under conductor Paul Wingfield that developed into powerful music drama in Act Three

Having conducted Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito with Chelsea Opera Group in 2023 [a performance that had ‘plenty of style and lots to enjoy’, see my review], Paul Wingfield returned to the company on 21 June 2026 for Mozart’s other great mature opera seria, Idomeneo at Cadogan Hall. The cast featured Lorena Paz Nieto as Ilia, Frances Gregory as a mezzo-soprano Idamante (the work was performed in the original 1781 Munich version), Eleanor Dennis as Elettra, Sean Tester as Arbace and Andrew Henley as Idomeno, with Dafydd Allen as the High Priest, Emyr Wyn Jones as the Oracle and four students from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Phoebe Curcher, Laura Toomey, Justin Jacobs, William Swinnerton as the chorus soloists. Oliver John Ruthven provided forte-piano continuo.

Idomeneo remains something of a textual minefield. The original 1781 production was somewhat fraught with Mozart having to make cuts and changes due to the work’s excessive length. He made adaptations for the 1786 Vienna performance with Idamante as a tenor, but never got the chance to create what he thought of as the definitive version. Evidently he wanted to revise the work to bring out the Gluckian elements. 

The libretto was adapted from the French by Giambattista Varesco who seems to have had some familiarity with the work of Gluck and Calzabigi. Part of the fascination of Idomeneo is the way the work looks in one direction to Gluck and French opera, with its choruses, marches and ballet music alongside structural links to opera such as Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride. Yet on the other hand, Mozart was writing arias for Italian-trained singers and his music is remarkably prescient in the way that he looks forward to his mature operas.

Chelsea Opera Group presented the opera in a version that ran for three hours including interval. The ballet music was reduced to a single movement, there were cuts, but Act Three was substantially complete (Elettra’s final aria is sometimes a casualty) and Arbace had a single aria. The secco recitative was, I think, trimmed and certainly the balance tipped towards the accompanied recitative. It is this latter that makes the opera so distinctive, especially the way Mozart leans in to the fluidity in the drama. There is a modernity to these and the contrast with the stand-alone arias is notable.

Oliver John Ruthven provided admirably fluent continuo for secco recitatives which had a nice sense of impulse to them, whilst the whole performance seemed to lean into the accompanied recitatives. These provided some of the most powerful moments in the opera as singers, orchestra and conductor came together in the drama.

The overture gave us stylish modern instrument Mozart, but with a litheness and feeling of impulse that kept things moving. Andrew Henley brought a combination of power, intensity and fluidity to the title role. A former baritone, Henley’s voice had an admirable depth to it which gave Idomeneo the right sense of gravitas. Henley’s Idomeneo reacted intensely to the various buffets of fate, making the character’s accompanied recitatives things of expressive power, yet in his big aria ‘Fuor del mar’ we had some vivid passagework too. By the end, when Idomeneo accepts the Oracle’s pronouncement with relief, Henley gave us a real sense of the character having been on a journey.

Frances Gregory, who was a delightful Cherubino in Opera North’s recent production of Le nozze di Figaro [see my review] made an appealing, soft-grained Idamante. Gregory’s mellow approach to the music brought out both the beauties in Idamante’s love for Ilia, and his constant sense of anxiety in his relationship with his father. Admirably lacking in swagger, you really felt for Idamante’s friends and family when he went of to fight the monster in Act Three!

Lorena Paz Nieto made Ilia into a rather sparky not to say sharp young woman. The role can sometimes be defined by her lyrical Act Two aria. Nieto sang this finely, but elsewhere she gave Ilia something of a sharp-toned edge which made her interactions with Idamante more interesting. There were moments when Nieto’s tone threatened to become too edgy but overall this was an impressive performance.

The challenge of Idomeneo is that Mozart and his librettist are bringing three disparate stories together. Only in the great Act Three quartet does the opera allow these threads to come together, with Mozart’ weaving some magic in a quartet that seems almost accompanied recitative at times, and was here rendered with powerful sympathy. 

Though Elettra sings in the quartet, her arias almost exist in stately opera seria isolation. Thankfully Eleanor Dennis brought both power and purpose to the role. Here opening aria demonstrated Dennis’ combination of fluidity and bravura, whilst in her Act Two aria she managed to make delightful work of Elettra in love. The character remains something of a scary one, even in love she is relishing the opportunities of spending time (a sea voyage) with a lover (Idamante) in love with someone else! And of course, in her final aria Mozart gives us a splendid example of his opera seria manner as Elettra’s mind disintegrates, magnificently caught by Dennis.

Sean Tester brought vivid tone and style to his Act Two aria. This is a rather backward-looking piece and Tester seemed to enjoy it to maximum bravura. Elsewhere, he made a finely dramatic contribution. Dafydd Allen was a strong High Priest, his accompanied recitative in Act Three really telling. Emyr Wyn Jones brought admirably resonant tone to the Oracle, sung from the rear balcony.

The orchestra gave us one movement of the ballet music as an entracte. The players seemed most comfortable in the set pieces, and some of the more awkward corners of the score occasionally lacked definition, but overall this was a remarkable account for an orchestra whose main arena of activity is 19th and 20th century opera [we heard them in impressive form in Verdi’s Macbeth last year, see my review, and in November 2026 they are performing Thomas’ Hamlet]. The chorus has a field day. For once in an opera Mozart writes a challengingly satisfying choral part, and one that is an integral part of the drama. The Chelsea Opera Group attacked the music with an admirably vivid vigour.

The performance seemed to really come together in Act Three, as Wingfield managed to draw the work’s rather disparate elements into a whole. For all the occasional faults, cast and performers made Mozart’s early masterpiece into the music drama it is.