First performed 100 years ago, Adriana Lecouvreur is the best known opera by Francesco Cilea, a younger contemporary of Puccini. The piece has acquired the status of the operatic equivalent of Sunset Boulevard - a work about a glamorous cult diva that has become in turn a vehicle for glamorous cult divas - but it is actually a rather clever study of the relationship between life and art. The twist lies in Cilea's equation of life with music, and art with spoken drama.
The basis of the work is factual. Lecouvreur was an 18th-century French actress who was notorious for an affair with Maurice, Count of Saxony, and a series of public rows with his former mistress, the married Princess de Bouillon. The real Lecouvreur died young, apparently from natural causes. Cilea's version has her murdered by the princess, though not before he has taken his audience on a roller-coaster ride that confounds all expectations.
He initially cons us into thinking that what we are watching is a comedy of manners. Cilea is wonderful at capturing the salaciousness of society intrigue. The crunch comes when Adriana blurs the line between reality and art by performing a monologue from Phèdre at a soiree given by the Prince de Bouillon, inflecting the lines so as to expose his wife's adultery. At this point Cilea lets fly an alarming barrage of percussion, jolting the score from comedy into tragedy.
Despite its reputation as a star vehicle, the opera works better as an ensemble piece, which is how Opera Holland Park have elected to do it. Christine Bunning sings the title role with great allure; Justin Lavender is a suave, slippery Maurizio. Rosalind Plowright is wonderful at capturing the princess's fury and fading glamour, while Nicholas Todorovic is her worldly-wise husband.
Given that the opera takes place mostly indoors, it is the last piece one would expect to work in an open-air theatre. Tom Hawkes's production just about gets it right, updating the work to the 1930s and sustaining Cilea's metaphors by dressing Bunning and Plowright up like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford respectively. And the whole is nicely conducted by John Gibbons.
· In rep until July 27. Box office: 020-7602 7856.
