Those lavish costumes, the fiery Sunday and the troupe of jugglers continue to leave a vivid impression in Phelim McDermott’s sumptuous staging of Akhnaten. Presently in its second revival since English National Opera and Improbable theatre company’s first unveiling in two thousand-sixteenth, the work has lost none of its exotic allure, nor its capacity to confound. With the deliberate absence of surtitles, the slow-motion unfolding of Philip Glass’s one thousand nine hundred eighty-three ‘portrait’ opera, beginning with those obsessive arpeggios, can still create for a perplexing evening. Regardless of the visual spectacle so brilliantly devised by Tom Pye, Kevin Pollard and Bruno Poet, Akhnaten continues to divide those who revere or revile its emotionally detached, yet fascinating slice of Egyptology belonging to 14th-century BC. Unfolding via a series of aux, the three acts outline the rise and fall of the sun-worshipping and androgynous Pharaoh.
Within his brief reign Akhnaten discards the ancient gods, moves his capital city and promotes an ideology of a single deity, the Aten – a pioneering and extreme vision developed two centuries later by Moses. It’s a step too distant for the elderly guard and following his assignation by a reactionary populace, polytheism returns and a new boy King, Tutankhamun, is crowned. Elusive spoken texts in English and sung words in Egyptian, Hebrew and Akkadian, variously assembled ancient hymns, prayers and inscriptions, do for the libretto, while meaning accrues its thinly plot and mimed action. Filling the back of the stage beneath tiered surfaces are three glass panels resembling mum exhibits, and artfully propose the interior of a pharaoh’s tomb. Within the central chamber Amenhotep III is embalmed, while actors over in silhouette carry out animated hieroglyphs.
These illustrative scenes obviate the necessity for surtitles and underline the production’s ‘show not tell’ concept, explicitly conveyed with the crowning of Akhnaten. The transformation his bare first entry to a splendidly bejewelled monarch is as mesmerising as the supporting propulsive rhythms which a striking contrast to the stately pace on stage. It’s a juxtaposition heightened by the ten members of the Gandini Juggling Company, whose talents in keeping aloft an array of balls, clubs and orbs mirrors the mechanistic quality of Glass’s music. Inevitably, our attention is drawn to the opportunity of ped balls or even the relevance of the jugglers, their unlikely presence justified, according to the programme book, by images on an Ancient Egyptian wall painting. The intermittent ball tossing also underlines a work suffd with ritual, outlined early on by the gradual dismemberment of Amenhotep III and later the sinuous duet between Akhnaten and Nefertiti whose blood-red robes snake across the stage and menace to tie them in knots. A sense of looking through history is achieved Kevin Pollard’s costumes in their ancient to modern traversal. Particularly effective is the placing of Akhnaten in a white frame, its chiaroscuro effect suggesting a Renaissance oil painting. His measured ascent up a ladder to compliment the Sunday god, a blazing ball of light, remains the dramatic apex of Act two.
On opening night, the American counter-tenor Anthony Roth Costanzo sang the title role with sustained power, and if the metallic edge to his voice lacked warmth his ‘Hymn to the Sun’ possessed a noble intensity. He was well supported by the wealthy mezzo of Chrystal E Williams’s Nefertiti, while S Korean soprano Haegee Lee as Queen Tye, Akhnaten’s mother, sounded just a tiny strident, but managed to blend well in ensemble passages. Zachary James imposed as the pontificating Scribe and Narrator, and the trio of dissenters – Paul Curievic’s High Priest of Amon, Jolyon Loy’s Aye (his top hat adorned with a skull) and Benson Wilson’s common Horemhab – all delivered their roles with authority.
Number less convincing in their passages of choral recitation were the six daughters of Akhnaten, nor the ENO chorus whose singing brought powerful expression to the outer acts. In the pit, Karen Kamensek guided the orchestra with chilly assurance, the players unfazed by the score’s repetitions and subtle changes of metre. Judging by this performance, there’s number doubt Akhnaten continues to packs a punch; its rituals and striking juxtapositions still grip the imagination.
