Jacquelyn Stucker / Vélemények

Complementing this score, both rich and compact, is the showtime set by takis and simply glamorous costumes, sapphire blue in the first half, fiery orange in the aftermath. In the title role, as the woman taken over by an obsessive and destructive infatuation with her stepson Hippolytus is the vocally and physically agile Chinese-born mezzo- soprano Hongni Wu. The New Zealander-Tongan tenor Filipe Manu as the object of her unfortunate desires is already impressive, The Southbank Sinfonia is one of London's niftiest orchestras, and a perfect fit for this sometimes jazzy, sometimes filmic, always kaleidoscopic score, conductor Edmund Whitehead impressively spinning all these plates at once. Jette Parker Young Artist Noa Naamat has that rare quality among opera directors today: she knows that less is more, and never meddles when the music, libretto, lighting designer (Lee Curran) and artists are getting on with their job. That restraint bodes very well for the flourishing of other works on her watch. Lots to look forward to from the Jette Parker alumni, in short. Catch this remarkable work, and you will see what I mean.

Naamat responds to the work's symbolic, stylised action with some striking stage pictures, helped by Takis's futuristic designs, but a fiddly revolve that must serve as cage, glade and gladiatorial ring, draws focus (they really get their money's worth from it) and dilutes the tension so carefully fostered by the young cast. The current crop of Jette Parker Young Artists is a strong one, and there's plenty here for them to cut their teeth on. There are shades of Salome and Lulu in Hongni Wu's bewitching Phaedra. Denied the inner life Britten draws in such concise brushstrokes for his Phaedra, Henze's must perform her desire, shame, desperation with gesture and frenzied action, at once egged-on and held back from the brink of suicide by Aphrodite (a ferocious, full-throttle Jacquelyn Stucker). The lightness and sheen to Wu's mezzo plays well against the oaky depth of Stucker's soprano, rebalancing this central power struggle. Tenor Filipe Manu is a radiant, hapless Hippolytus, in thrall to Patrick Terry's androgynous Artemis (who has the toughest job of the evening, battling not always successfully through some of Henze's thickest orchestral textures), and bass Michael Mofidian impresses again with a late cameo as the Minotaur. Edmund Whitehead conducts a 23-strong Southbank Sinfonia, playing a long game with Act I's brittle, matter-of-fact textures before releasing into technicolour in Act II. The score flows like water through the fingers when you expect blood, its ungraspable fluidity both startling and liberating - a response, if not an answer, to Britten and Birtwistle's treatments, both warmer to the touch.