‘The Egyptian Helen’ and ‘Tolomeo’ Review: Marital Strife and Hidden Identities

At Bard SummerScape, Christian Räth directs an enigmatic staging of Richard Strauss’s myth-bending work; led by its new music director, Peter Whelan, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra brought Handel’s opera to Caramoor.

By 

Heidi Waleson

July 28, 2026 at 4:05 pm ET

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Hailey Clark and the company of ‘The Egyptian Helen’ at Bard. MARIA BARANOVA

Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.

Richard Strauss’s “The Egyptian Helen” (1928) defies any realistic interpretation, and at this year’s Bard SummerScape, Christian Räth staged it as a tortured psychological landscape that was fun to watch, if sometimes challenging to follow. In Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s libretto, the enraged Menelaus tries to kill his errant wife Helena on their journey home from Troy. He is forestalled by the sorceress Aithra, who tries to give the couple a happy ending, inventing a scenario in which a phantom Helena ran off with Paris while the real Helena has actually been asleep in Egypt for the past 10 years. The text includes an Omniscient Seashell, drinks that offer forgetfulness or remembering, ghostly apparitions, a magical couples’ retreat at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, and a desert prince who becomes obsessed with Helena.

At its heart, however, the opera is about marital acceptance and reconciliation, and it was affecting to see two excellent, powerful singers—soprano Hailey Clark (Helena) and tenor John Matthew Myers (Menelaus)—battling their way through a seemingly impossible situation. In staging Aithra’s magical manifestations, Mr. Räth and choreographer Catherine Galasso made their inner demons visible. Menelaus found himself repeatedly killing Paris (six male dancers in Trojan armor) and a phantom Helena (a female dancer); confused by a shadowy chorus in satin nightwear and shoes with red pompoms (Mattie Ullrich designed the costumes); or lost in a maze of mirrors. Tyler Micoleau’s lighting tended toward dimness, which intensified the sense of dislocation. Mr. Räth also collaborated on the scenic design (a gray interior in Act 1, a mountain range in Act 2) with Daniel Unger. Elaine J. McCarthy designed the projections.

Ms. Clark captured Helena’s intensity and determination to make Menelaus feel her love for him; Mr. Myers was poignant in his depiction of a strong man’s total confusion. As Aithra, Jana McIntyre’s bright soprano was insecure in the coloratura passages and grew harsh as the evening progressed. Baritone Blake Denson brought a dangerous ferocity to Altair, the desert prince; as Da-Ud, Altair’s son, killed by Menelaus, who thinks he is Paris, Shawn Roth displayed a sweetly lyric tenor that made for a nice timbral change. Deborah Nansteel doubling as the Omniscient Seashell and one of Aithra’s servants, and Catherine Creed as the other servant, ably filled out the cast. The singers of the Bard Festival Chorale were a game group, swarming all over the stage. Leon Botstein’s conducting of the American Symphony Orchestra was relentlessly loud and unsubtle, missing opportunities for shaping and transparency in what is ultimately a love story. “Helena” runs through Aug. 2, with a livestream on July 31 at 4 p.m.

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A scene from the performance of Handel’s ‘Tolomeo, re d’Egitto’ at Caramoor. GABE PALACIO

Katonah, N.Y.

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the San Francisco Bay area’s venerable period-instrument ensemble, visited Caramoor on Sunday with Handel’s “Tolomeo, re d’Egitto” (1728). Conducted by its incoming music director, Peter Whelan—just the fourth in the group’s 45-year history—the orchestra was in excellent form, its stylish swing and careful balances buoyantly supporting the singers. With some judicious excisions of aria sections, the opera ran 2 1/2 hours with one intermission.

Handel wrote “Tolomeo” for a trio of 18th-century superstars, and the Philharmonia presentation scored with two out of three. Tolomeo, the deposed king of Egypt, is hiding out on the island of Cyprus disguised as a shepherd. He is lamenting the death of his wife, Seleuce, who is not actually dead but also on Cyprus, pretending to be a shepherdess and looking for him. Araspe, the king of Cyprus, and his sister, Elisa, are in love with these two exiles and determined to have them no matter what. Newly shipwrecked on the island is Tolomeo’s usurping brother, Alessandro, who is having second thoughts. Everything works out, eventually.

Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen (Tolomeo) and soprano Lauren Snouffer (Seleuce) were spectacular, their rich, matched timbres and onstage chemistry bringing the separated spouses to vivid life. Both displayed robust instruments with exceptional clarity, agility in florid passages, and moving sincerity in the many laments, which were ornamented with elegant subtlety. Their two duets—one of anguished farewell, the other of joyful reunion—were beautifully blended. As Elisa, Nicole Heaston’s bright, secure soprano was also impressive, but she missed the character’s deep malevolence—Elisa is prepared to kill to get what she wants.

Countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim sang Alessandro with a hooded quality and too much vibrato; he sounded messy, especially in the big register jumps of his agitated Act 2 aria. Bass-baritone Dashon Burton raged monotonously as Araspe.

James Darrah Black, the artistic director of Long Beach Opera, the show’s co-producer, supplied an occasionally inscrutable semi-staging that featured a chest covered with slabs of foam, some color-changing neon cylinders arranged in what looked like a tripping hazard, and four mirrored cubes. Character interactions were thoughtfully choreographed—though having Elisa paw Tolomeo made her seem flirty and desperate rather than dangerous. Still, the director’s contributions for the most part supported the underlying emotional drama, which, in lesser musical and theatrical hands, can be flattened into an evening of empty display.