Xerxes

English Touring Opera, under the inspiring directorship of James Conway, is the most energetic and enterprising operatic company in the country, not only taking three operas round the country this autumn, and another couple next spring, but also touring sacred works by Buxtehude, Gesualdo and Bach to 15 destinations, mainly ecclesiastical. ETO is working with a new orchestra for its baroque repertoire, a director-free group formed earlier this year calling itself the Old Street Band.

On the second night of Handel’s Xerxes, which I went to at the Royal College of Music’s Britten Theatre, it seemed to be a first-rate group, and with Jonathan Peter Kenny conducting incisively, sometimes perhaps a bit too much, this fairly lengthy piece almost sped by. If, even so, I found myself less than fully engaged, some at least of that is my fault — how much is a question I ponder whenever, nearly, I go to a Handel opera, without ever being able definitely to give an answer that satisfies my artistic conscience.