WFO, 02/11/2024

Donizetti : Le convenienze ed inconveniente teatrali

Wexford Festival Opera Chorus and Orchestra

Danila Grassi

The concluding offering in the Wexford Festival's "Theatre within Theatre" theme is a more conventional, but no less entertaining view of backstage shenanigans from the pen of Donizetti in his most Rossinian mode.  A third-rate provincial company is in rehearsal (in a third-rate provincial theatre) of a new opera, Romolo ed Ersilia.  The Prima Donna is being unbearable, her husband, slavishly at her service, even more so, the Primo Tenore is in the wrong show, and the second roles think they haven't got enough to do.  Add to that a flamboyantly overbearing stage mom (to the Seconda Donna) who, like Bottom in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, thinks she can do absolutely everything better than anyone present, and has no compunction in letting everyone know it, and things fall apart very quickly, to the despair, and potential bankruptcy of the Impresario.

Donizetti originally created this as a one-act entertainment known as a farsa in 1827.  The editorial history thereafter gets rather complicated, but the main point is that he revised it in 1831 to turn it into a two-act opera, in the process of which he added the character of Mama Agata, the aforementioned stage mom.  If we hadn't got the point that this is meant to be a thoroughly comic affair, Mama Agata is a drag role, sung by a baritone, and not in any falsetto range either.  There have been multiple permuatations of this opera, and what we saw tonight might be termed the "Wexford special edition", because director Orla Phelan has tweaked some of it to enable her to give it a modern setting, and to round out some corners that no longer translate well to our current sensibilities.  Phelan did something similar with Halévy's Lalla Roukh two years ago, very successfully, and the same intelligence and humour has come into play here, with excellent results.  

In terms of the music, Donizetti made room for the habit of the time of singers to use insertion arias, that is, to substitute the aria for their role written by the composer of the given opera with an aria that the singer felt suited their particular talents to perfection, but which had nothing to do with the original piece, and might or might not even be by the same composer.   Apart from the Tenor aborted attempt to sing "Edelweiss" - because he thinks he's supposed to be in The Sound of Music - most of these appear in the second act.  I couldn't identify the Tenor's aria at the start of the act, though it was vaguely familiar, nor the Seconda Donna's number.  However, Agata sings a butchered version of the Willow Song from Rossini's Otello, with a garbled text that brings Beckmesser's Prize Song to mind, while the showstopper was the Prima Donna's rendition of "Glitter and be gay" from Bernstein's Candide.  In addition, playing into Wexford's tradition of investigating forgotten operas, Romolo ed Ersilia actually exists, it's a libretto by Metastasio but, rare for that most celebrated of operatic poets, a relative failure, with only two known settings.  One of those was by Mysliveček, and part of the surviving overture was used for a ballet scene at the start of Act 2.  

As the inclusion of Richard Rodgers and Leonard Bernstein will have indicated, Phelan has set this up to date, more or less.  I'm not sure if I saw a mobile phone right at the start, but otherwise I would say that the setting was actually somewhere in the late 70s, partly because provincial companies of this type are no more, and provincial theatres not much more prevalent.  It works perfectly well, though, and the Impresario's revenge (which I will not spoil) was definitely more in keeping with modern times.  The other aspect that fitted very comfortably with the modern dress was Mama Agata.  Men dressed as women are, or were certainly not rare in opera, particularly in the 18th Century and earlier when women were frequently forbidden to perform on stage.  However, the great majority of replacements - mostly castrati - were still trying to sound like women.  Agata, on the other hand, is sung by a baritone; visually she may look female, but aurally she most certainly does not, and it's that contrast that is funny, and with which a modern audience is as comfortable as on seeing any pantomime dame, or Drag Race candidate, and as such 'she' pretty much steals the show.  

Centre: Paolo Bordogna (Agata Scannagalli) and R. Giuseppe Toia (Procolo)
Donizetti: Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali, Act 2.
Wexford Festival Opera (© Patricio Cassinoni, 2024)

Musically, I can't really say it's memorable.  Aside from not being sure what was actually written for this opera itself, and what has been drawn from other sources, I doubt I'd remember any of the arias or ensembles.  However, in the moment, that mattered little, it all sparkled with wit and humour and was lively and entertaining, and delivered with verve and brilliance by the orchestra under Danila Grassi.  All the soloists were excellent with some especially noteworthy performances.  Sharleen Joynt nailed her Diva colours to the mast with her showy entrance aria right from the start, and consolidated them with the brilliant "Glitter and be gay".  Matteo Loi was a solid presence as the unfortunate Composer, put upon in every way and from every side, and, of course, Mama Agata, bullying and browbeating her way into every corner of the production, has to be spectacular, for good and bad (the character can't actually sing very well, despite her delusions of grandeur), and Paolo Bordogni delivered on every point, with gleeful relish, right down to taking the once-traditional curtain call of the drag queen in which the wig is removed to reveal the man beneath the make-up.  

It's been said often enough before that opera is a ridiculous form of entertainment.  This show takes that idea, runs with it, and shows us exactly why we still adore it, because regardless of implausibilities, it still works.  In a work like this, entertainment is the name of the game, and that was exactly what we got, for our greater pleasure.

[Next : 15th November]