★★☆☆☆It’s a sign that something is amiss when your attention strays so quickly from the music to the motor scooter puttering across the stage in the opening scenes in picturesque Florence. My inner pedant kept asking: “Is that really a 1950s machine?”A silly question, of course, but it hints at the problem with Adam Guettel’s musical drama, a relentlessly ethereal hybrid that won so much acclaim when it opened in New York a decade and a half ago. Every note of the score — part musical, part chamber opera — is tastefully crafted and prompts a deft performance from the Orchestra of Opera North, the musicians unobtrusively arrayed on a platform above the set. However, good taste and period detail are no substitute for…

Source: The Times June 18, 2019 23:48 UTC