Somebody (with exquisite taste) paid to bus in this production of Haydn’s 1798 oratorio “staged” by Carlus Padrissa, of the Barcelona-based experimental theater group La Fura dels Baus, and performed at Rose Theater by the the period-instrument Insula Orchestra from France, conducted by its founding director, Laurence Equilbey, and the Accentus choir. Somebody with less exquisite taste wrote the Mostly Mozart teaser, promising “A relentless stream of imagery, text, and stage pageantry touching on everything from philosophy and physics to DNA research and refugees, an “immersive theatrical experience, and an “astonishing, maximalist production that explodes all notions of who we are and where we came from.” And yet it was all true. The crowning moment came when the Oratorio celebrated the crowning moment of creation itself — the creation of man in God’s own image — and the men so created were the refugees, a reminder of their nobility and ours. Musically crystalline chorus and orchestra supported the drama, sometimes reading from ipads, moving props around, and pouring out perfect little period tones. Of the three great soloists, lyric baritone Thomas Tatzl was brooding and amused in equal measures, while pouring out seamless sound. Check him out at www.Thomas-Tatzl.com, and for goodness sake get him a contract at the Met hopefully for somthing other than Papageno.
