Krishna review – the mystery of John Tavener’s ‘mystic pantomime’ is why it has been staged

Grange Park Opera, West Horsley, Surrey
Singers and orchestra toiled admirably with this posthumous world premiere about the Hindu god, complete with inflatable deadly serpent. But the work feels straight from the 19th-century Orientalism playbook

The first thing you should know about John Tavener’s 2005 opera Krishna is that it is actually a “mystical pantomime”. If that very idea provokes even the faintest amusement, this is not the country-house opera for you. The second thing you should know is that by the end of Krishna’s posthumous world premiere at Grange Park Opera, there was warm applause for the musicians.

Rightly so. Without Ross Ramgobin’s intense, poised commitment as the Celestial Narrator, or Eliran Kadussi’s sweet, flexible countertenor as the adolescent Krishna, or the impeccably lucid, admirably agile sopranos of Rosa Sparks (the child Krishna), Nazan Fikret (his wife Rukmini) and Jennifer Statham and Julia Sitkovetsky (Radha as child and woman respectively), this short work would have felt even more interminable.