In a field somewhere, there must be a car-boot sale where hard-up opera companies offer old productions for sale, no questions asked. It's presumably where Welsh National Opera picked up its "new" staging of Seraglio, directed by James Robinson, which since 1997 has done good service across the US, fetching up at six companies in all.
If WNO thought it was getting a bargain, a classic version of Mozart's hard-to-stage Singspiel, then someone saw it coming. The lavishly detailed designs (sets by Allen Moyer and costumes by Anna R Oliver) transplant the story of harem life to the Orient Express in the 1920s, though whether it's travelling from Paris to Istanbul or vice versa is never clear. It matters not, for the change of location adds nothing beyond a stylish veneer and a bundle of inconsistencies, while Robinson's direction provides no musical, social or political insights, just strenuously unfunny moments of slapstick.
With a dream cast, the show might get by. But with the lineup WNO has assembled, and routine conducting from Rinaldo Alessandrini, whose full-of-life approach to Monteverdi doesn't transfer successfully to early Mozart, it's a desperately slow evening. The best singing comes in the smaller roles, with Claire Ormshaw's feisty Blonde and Wynne Evans's OTT yet lively Pedrillo. Simon Thorpe's Pasha Selim is passable, too, but the other performances – Robin Tritschler's Belmonte, Petros Magoulas's Osmin and Lisette Oropesa's Konstanze – lack any visible dramatic dimension.
Repeated next Saturday (box office: 0870 040 2000). Then touring.
