Guildhall School (live streaming), 02/11/2020
Wolf-Ferrari : Il segreto di Susanna
Mascagni : Zanetto
Donizetti : Rita
Guildhall School Orchestra
Dominic Wheeler
Triple-bills in opera are rare, so this proposition by the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, of three Italian one-acters, generously being streamed live, was a particularly appealing one. The plan was for four performances with two casts; tonight has gone ahead, I imagine Wednesday will as well, the other two may or may not, depending on whatever new directives come from the government.
The sound was a little unstable, fluctuating as the singers move around the stage area, no doubt an effect of the microphone placing, and the performers sang level with the orchestra, but you get used to it. The orchestra took a minute or two to warm up, some slightly sour sounds in the first few minutes, but quickly settled down into some nice, clear playing. I think the first two operas, at least, were playing with reduced orchestration, but it didn't sound thin or impoverished, and the Wolf-Ferrari and the Mascagni are both quite opulent scores.
They began with the best-known of the three, Wolf-Ferrari's Susanna's Secret. Gil suspects his new bride, Susanna, of having a secret lover, he can smell the tobacco in the house, yet he knows neither he, she, nor his valet Sante smoke. When challenged, Susanna admits to having a secret, but won't admit what it is, so Gil, extremely jealous, plots to surprise her. The surprise is his, however, her secret is, of course, that she does smoke. Deeply relieved, he decides to join her in her, at heart, innocent vice, and they reconcile. Originally set at the time of composition, the turn of the 20th Century, director Stephen Medcalf brings it up to date (as he did with both the other pieces too), in a simple bedroom set, beaten metal walls with a few doors, and a double bed with attached side-tables in the centre. The direction of the singers keeps them suitably distanced from each other, without looking too forced. Olivia Been was a nice, fresh-voiced Susanna, particularly good in her dreamy little fantasy on smoking, but the opera was carried off by the excellent Gil of Tom Mole, a rich, strong baritone, and a convincing actor.
Zanetto is more of a conversation piece than anything else. I've mentioned before that Mascagni, known almost exclusively for Cavalleria Rusticana, tended to have difficulties with his opera libretti, and this is yet another case in point. Set (originally) near Renaissance Florence, Silvia is a widow and a much courted hostess, bored with the men who flock to her, and disillusioned about love. A young wanderer, Zanetto, passing by catches her attention, he is, or he reminds her very strongly, of a youth she once saw in the city who represented all the innocence she has long ago lost. When they meet, the attraction is immediate, but Silvia determines to preserve that innocence, and sends him away again, advising he forget about her.
It's very slight, and although as always with Mascagni, there are appealing passages, it's not, in the end, a particularly memorable work. Mascagni's publisher, Sanzogno, apparently wanted this piece to stand alongside Cavalleria, but it doesn't have a fraction of the power of the earlier piece. Still, Ella de Jongh and Jessica Ouston did their best with it. Zanetto is a travesty role, unusual in Italian opera of this period, but explained by the original play, which saw one of Sarah Bernhardt's early triumphs in this role, Ouston's dark mezzo worked well here. De Jongh has an opulent soprano, very much the sort of sound you want for Mascagni, but there's a little too much vibrato for my liking, and the top B flat on "Io t'ho salvato" was not pretty.
Like Zanetto, Donizetti's Rita was also based on a French play; in fact, Donizetti composed it to a French libretto, and it's an opéra-comique, that is, with spoken dialogue in between the numbers. For one reason or another, the original project fell through, and Donizetti had an Italian translation made for performance in Naples, but that too never materialised, and in the end, it was never performed in Donizetti's lifetime. Rita's first husband, Gasparo, who regularly beat her, is believed drowned at sea, and Rita has remarried, to Beppe, who is the definition of a hen-pecked husband. However, Gasparo didn't drown but ended up in Canada, and shows up at Rita's hotel, having heard that Rita died in a fire, wanting proof of her death so he can marry a Canadian. The ex-spouses are horrified at each other's reappearance, there's a complicated game of cards that both men want to lose (since the winner gets to keep Rita), Gasparo indulges in a bit of underhanded trickery, but in the end, Beppe stands up for himself and his marriage, and Gasparo goes on his way leaving the couple with a better understanding of each other - in short, that there shall be no more beating, in either direction. It's not, in modern terms, exactly an edifying tale, even if the ending ostensibly offers some redemption. Medcalf, however, gives it a further twist by implying it was all a dream - something that also happened at the end of Zanetto, but if he did it at the end of Segreto, I missed it.
What Medcalf has done with Rita, however, is completely remove the fourth wall. All the players have clearly been directed to address themselves to the audience when they're not addressing each other. What was rather remarkable was that the Rita, Laura Lolita Perešivana, systematically and almost infallibly, directed herself not to the auditorium, as the two men did, but straight and unerringly to whichever camera was on her at any given moment. It was actually rather startling at first, and then kind of beguiling, because it was as if she was acknowledging that there was possibly a bigger audience 'out there', watching over the internet, than there was in the auditorium, and she was addressing us, in our living rooms. This gave her an immediacy that was very appealing and which, combined with a bright, agile soprano voice, just a shade underpowered right at the top, imparted plenty of vitality to her character. Thando Mjandana was the beleaguered Beppe, again, a fresh, bright tenor, a bit of rasp in the voice at the very top notes but otherwise a pleasure to hear. Chuma Sijequa was a little less comfortable in terms of agility, but it's a robust and assured bass-baritone voice, and he had plenty of roguish charm for the part of Gasparo.
This was a delightful programme of rarities, ingeniously produced, very well sung in the main, with a couple of stand-out performances, and very well delivered. Now that the possibility is there, I'll be keeping an eye on the Guildhall calendar, in the hopes of more of this sort of thing, which was a delightful way to spend an otherwise miserably wet evening.
[Next : 5th November]