Donizetti - Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali (Wexford, 2024)

Gaetano Donizetti - Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali

Wexford Festival Opera, 2024

Danila Grassi, Orpha Phelan, Sharleen Joynt, Paolo Bordogna, Giuseppe Toia, Matteo Loi, Paola Leoci, Alberto Robert, William Kyle, Hannah Bennett, Philip Kalmanovitch, Henry Grant Kerswell

RTE Player - 25th October 2024

I may have been a little bit harsh in my earlier review of Charles Villiers Stanford's The Critic - well, the clue is in the name of the opera - and about comic opera in general, but by way of defense against accusations of not having a sense of humour, I give you Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali by Donizetti, also performed as part of the Wexford Festival Opera's 2024 Theatre within Theatre themed programme. Now this is how a comic opera ought to be, hilariously satirical with a foot in the real world, sympathetically presented with original touches that keep it fresh, contemporary and hugely funny.

Such is the mastery of Donizetti's opera that it works as well today as it would have done 200 years ago. Written in 1831, it hasn't aged a day and retains its capacity to entertain and remain open to new ideas and interpretations. That applies to its sense of humour and its only slightly exaggerated satire of the stage, its theatrical conventions and characters, but also for its qualities as a fine opera. Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali ("The conventions and inconveniences of the stage") not only plays up to the absurdities of those conventions, it exploits them for good opera, as in the first scene with the Prima Donna soprano exhibits her range impressively in a rehearsal of one of her arias.

The original setting here might be a provincial theatre putting on a new musical setting of an opera seria, Romolo ed Ersilia, but the pressures and tensions are recognisable in many artistic contexts, not just operatic. Here the viewer is given backstage access to the rehearsals, where things aren't going well. There are a lot of elements that need to work together when putting on any opera, and with the impresario working under considerable budgetary constraints, not only are the timescales for the rehearsals tight, but the schedules for costume design, set building, lighting and choreography all have to come into alignment. Since the singers can't even manage to get along with each other or with the roles they have been given, demanding that the composer makes last minutes changes and rewrite whole new numbers for them, it's going to be a challenge, to say the least, to bring all the other elements together for opening night. Such are the conventions and inconveniences of the stage.

Among the many strands of humour and show-off ability on offer from the supposedly starring tenor and soprano roles, the principal entertainment here comes from Mamma Agata, the pushy mother who demands more of an eye-catching role for her daughter Luigia who she is determined is going to be a big star. She's not only contemptuous of the conventions by demanding a larger singing role for daughter, but she is quite content to undermine and cut the roles of the star tenor and soprano. The diva isn't going to be upstaged by a mere 'Seconda Donna' but Mamma Agata's ambitions don't even end there. When her actions start causing walk-outs, she ends up offering to take on a role herself, only managing to stir up more division. The poor music director hasn't a chance, as Mamma Agata takes over the choreography in the Second Act as well, and ends up running/ruining the whole show.

It's a gift of a role, involving a baritone dressing up travesti and acting outrageously as a domineering stage mother. You can't go wrong with Mamma Agata, but you can always find ways to make it better, and the best way is to play it straight, which is what bass-baritone Paolo Bordogna does. No exaggeration is required ...well, none more than is necessary. It's all written into the part; the mamma should steal the show and indeed does here. You couldn't fault any element of his performance, bringing complete conviction to the role with fine comic acting and dreadfully good singing. He has the impresario eating out of his daughter's hand and the audience too hanging on every gesture. But the opera has a lot more to offer in terms of humorous situations and great performances that include Sharleen Joynt sparkling and sprinkling venom as the diva Daria Garbinati.

Although there is room within the recitative passages for a director to introduce additional elements and modern references for a modern audience, the creative director can find many other ways to work within the opera's framework. Orpha Phelan is a director who is very capable of that, her previous work for Wexford Lalla-Roukh demonstrating that ability (even if her La Bohème for Irish National Opera was a little more respectful and traditional). One of the amusing features she introduces is the tenor turning up for the wrong performance believing that he is actually rehearsing for a performance of The Sound of Music and wondering where all the Nazis and nuns are. He certainly finds the 'Mother Superior' intimidating when he is paired up with Mamma Agata for a duet. Hilarity, inevitably and calculatedly, ensues.

Produced in many different forms, often to include local and contemporary reference, Le convenienze is also open to additions and changes, the whole chaotic nature of the backstage rehearsals indeed encouraging extrapolation and reinterpretation. Wexford’s production keeps the original Italian provincial location but in a generic modern setting that doesn't indulge in current day trends - there are no mobile phones, social media comments or Taylor Swift references (not that I would have noticed). Instead they delve into the historical origins and references of the work, with the traditional insertion of arias from other works (much like Buxton's version, Viva la Diva developed a whole prologue of auditions for the roles), but seeking here to make them historically relevant to the work. The dance scene at the beginning of Act II for example is taken from the overture to Myslivecek’s 1773 setting of Romolo ed Ersilia. These are good choices, all of them contributing to the tone and humour of the work.

What is great about Le convenienze and where for example Stanford’s The Critic failed to convince - for me personally, although everyone else seemed to love it - is that Donizetti paints a scene that is quite believable. You don't have to be involved with the theatre or opera to know that rivalry, backstabbing and positioning go on and that there are massive egos and artistic sensitivities involved. It's well known even from movie star behaviour and there are plenty of divas in the modern music industry as well. You could easily map some of the situations here directly onto many contemporary figures without losing any of the detail and the explosiveness of the bad behaviours, but this production lets you do that yourself without any heavy-handed references.

Donizetti is one of the mainstays of the Wexford Festival Opera, who over the last 70 years have been ahead of the game in bringing many of the composer's forgotten and lost operas back to the stage, their efforts instrumental in consolidating his reputation as being worthy of recognition for more than just Lucia di Lammermoor. Considering it's a real crowd pleaser, a genuinely funny satire and a delightfully composed work that is unquestionably the highlight of this year's festival, it's surprising that Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali isn't more widely performed and enjoyed. In a festival that this year seemed to have too much levity for some critics (I hold my hand up to that), Wexford Festival Opera showed why it remains a good idea to keep Donizetti in the frame when it comes to quality rare opera.

External links: Wexford Festival Opera, RTE Streaming on YouTube

Rossini - Matilde di Shabran

Gioachino Rossini - Matilde di Shabran

Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, 2012

Michele Mariotti, Mario Martone, Juan Diego Flórez, Olga Peretyatko, Paolo Bordogna, Chiara Chialli, Simon Orfilia, Anna Goryachova, Marco Filippo Romano, Nicola Alaimo, Giorgio Misseri, Ugo Rosati, Dario Sallusto

Decca - Blu-ray

Whatever you might think about the plausibility or the dramatic merits of the plot of Matilde di Shabran, musically it's an absolute delight, with an abundance of melody and a number of meaty singing roles. It might be Rossini on autopilot, composing at breakneck speed and getting full value out of a few simple rehashed tunes repeated at a variety of speeds, but the fact that he manages nonetheless to fashion an entertaining musical entertainment out of the most meagre and ludicrous of librettos with limited means is near miraculous. At least, it is when its potential is fully realised at the Rossini Opera Festival by some of the best Rossinian performers in the world today.

No-one however could possibly lay any kind of claim for there being anything like a credible plot or even credible characters in Matilde di Shabran, but if writing for entertainment alone is justification enough for an opera, then that's certainly what Rossini delivers here. Corradino ("Ironheart") might be a fearsome warrior ("a lion, an ogre, a devil") and a heartless hater of women who resides in a dark castle on a hill, who issues dire pronouncements to strike fear into the hearts of the local villagers, but he finds his power-base crumble when faced with a disarming creature of the opposite sex. There is however no Bluebeard-like dark cautionary fairy-tale here. It's not some psychological exploration of the fatal attraction of female passions and the dangerous allure of masculine power. (It might be interesting to see Claus Guth let loose on this, but even he would find this work a challenge).

The woman who is going to storm Corradino's castle (metaphorically speaking) is of course Matilde di Shabran. Matilde has been left as a ward to Corradino by her father on his deathbed. Quite why the old man did this isn't entirely clear, but clearly he must have been insane or in a delirium if he thought it was a great idea to entrust his only daughter to a notorious hater of women, a man devoted entirely to war, havoc, slaughter and inflicting as much misery and fear into the world as is humanly possible. Corradino is however clearly good at his job, receiving tributes of vegetables from cowering villagers, showing his merciless character by having an unwary poet called Isidoro locked up for straying on his property and just because he finds his name effeminate. He's a baddie all right, this Corradino, and he chases Isidoro around the stage just to scare him a bit more.

There's a good hour of all this (comic-)macho posturing before Matilde arrives on the scene, or even before we hear a female voice in the opera. Even then, it's a mezzo-soprano singing the trouser-role of Edoardo, the son of Corradino's arch-enemy Don Rodrigo, who is locked up in the dungeon. When Matilde does turn up on the scene, Corradino obviously wants to slaughter this hateful but curiously attractive example of the fairer sex, but - what is this? Something stays his hand. Could it be love? Could the Ironheart be melting? Well, much to the delight of the scheming Countess, it's only a temporary aberration, since his mistrust of all women is proven to be justified when it appears that Matilde has released his prisoner Edoardo from chains. Faithless woman! So why then does Corradino still feel such pangs at the betrayal and even a hint of regret that he has had her executed...?

If you find that you're fully entertained for over three and a half hours by the thin ludicrous plot that passes for drama (or indeed comedy), then it's almost entirely down to Rossini's galloping, spinning and spiralling score. He may have written Matilde di Shabran in haste - even more than usual - to fulfil a commission, but you'd almost think that the speed of writing has found its way into the score, which rattles along at that familiar Rossinian pace, rattling out variations of the theme in a manner that works nonetheless in perfect accompaniment with the over-the-top situations and the behaviour of the characters. That of course is also expressed in the singing, and accordingly you'll find some of the composer's most extravagant bel canto writing here.

All of which wouldn't amount to much however if we didn't have the right people in place at the Rossini Opera Festival to make this 2013 performance of the work compellingly and thrillingly entertaining. Really, you only need to see the names Juan Diego Flórez and Olga Peretyatko here to know it's going to be sung as well as it can be. Even then though, both singers more than surpass expectations. Dramatically they don't have a lot to work with, and there's unfortunately a lot of mugging going on, but Flórez's singing is still without peer in this tenor register and he never once falters in the extremely difficult passages, even making them look easy. The same goes for the gorgeous songbird flutterings of Olga Peretyatko's flawless coloratura, but her unparalleled brilliance of this type of Rossini role is evident in her entire performance. It would be apparent to anyone that you are witnessing two of the best Rossini performers in the world here at their best.

You would be hard pressed to find flaws in the other performances either with Paolo Bordogna providing a good comic turn as Isidoro, Anna Goryachova a fine Edoardo and Chiara Chialli a suitably mean Countess. Simon Orfilia also makes a good impression as Ginardo, but is rather wasted in such a small role. Michele Mariotti races the orchestra through the work with no great subtlety, which is exactly the manner in which it should be played. There's not a lot to say about Mario Martone's direction or the stage design other than it's functional and perfectly suitable. The setting is generically period, the depiction of Corradino's castle, towers and dungeon is created through an all-purpose large double spiral staircase that remains static in place throughout, although it spins for effect at one or two key moments.

Decca's Blu-ray release of Matilde di Shabran looks and sounds pretty good in High Definition. The Blu-ray is region free, full-HD, with subtitles in Italian, English, French and German. The enclosed booklet includes a full track-by-track synopsis (which is more than the plot merits), and there is an essay on the creation of the work, although I'm not sure about the claim that this work conforms to the opera semiseria style. There are no extra features on the actual disc, but you have an entertaining three and a half hour opera here, with extraordinary performances and a solid presentation.

Rossini - La Gazza Ladra

Gioachino Rossini - La Gazza Ladra

Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro 2007

Lü Jia, Damiano Michieletto, Mariola Cantarero, Dmitry Korchak, Alex Esposito, Michele Pertusi, Paolo Bordogna, Kleopatra Papatheologou, Manuela Custer, Stefan Cifolelli, Cosmo Panozzo, Vittorio Prato, Matteo Ferrara

Dynamic

There’s an air of familiarity to Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie), and it’s not just the famous overture (reputedly dashed off the evening before the first performance) that is second in popularity only to the composer’s overture to William Tell, nor in this case is it anything to do with the composer’s habit of reusing his music for other compositions. What is familiar to the point of predictability in La Gazza Ladra (written in 1817 between La Cenerentola and Armida) is the manner in which its opera semiseria melodrama plotline plays out.

The plot of the opera is not dissimilar to other later and perhaps more obscure examples of that style – Halévy’s Clari, Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix, even Bellini’s La Sonnambula isn’t far off either – featuring and a couple of young lovers from differing classes in an Alpine/provincial setting whose hopes are thwarted by the one set of parents, who wish for a more suitable marriage for their son than to the peasant daughter of humble tenant farmers. Usually the purity and innocence of young woman in question is also unjustly maligned (‘mad scene’ optional at this point), only for the stain on her character resolved and tragedy averted in time for a happy ending. All this is the cause of much romantic reflection, lamenting and rejoicing in high-flown arias employing extravagant coloratura and stratospheric high notes.

La Gazza Ladra adheres closely to this model, but what differentiates it from other lesser examples of the opera semiseria is the fact that – obviously – it’s by Rossini, and being Rossini, the music is always melodically thrilling and inventive. The hook in this particular opera is of course that thieving magpie theme that flits through the opera musically, as well as the recognition of it as a playful dramatic theme, a deus ex machina element that pops in now and again to move the plot along and prevent it from getting bogged down in melodramatic excess. It helps if a production recognises this fact and never takes itself too seriously, but it also helps if you have singers who are capable of meeting the vocal demands and. Fortunately this production of La Gazza Ladra from the 2007 Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro mostly lives up to the invigorating tone of the work on both fronts.

A period staging won’t cut it in a modern context when the plot can be as stodgy and old-fashioned as this, even with Rossini’s music to enliven it. At the same time, it’s a mistake to get too clever, since the singers have enough on their plates with the extreme technical demands on their singing without being encumbered with elaborate acting and movements. Directed by Damiano Michieletto, this production – like most for this style of opera nowadays – goes for stylised colourful, minimalist, picture-book style imagery with no attempt at realism of locations, and theatrical costumes of no fixed period or style. There’s no grand concept either, though it does have a theme and some unusual touches – a grouping of all-purpose pipes that can be adapted to represent trees, pillars, cannons, prison bars, in the manner of Lepage’s Machine for the Met Ring – and there’s an acrobat dancer to play the part of the magpie, a playful touch that works quite well.

The singing is hit and miss, but by and large it’s a decent account of the opera. Mariola Cantarero is a fine Ninetta, with a lovely tone of voice that is more than capable of reaching all the notes and making them count. Dmitry Korchak has a nice tone of voice, but there’s little character in it and the demands of the Giannetto tenor role are a little beyond him. Alex Esposito is an excellent Fernando, his baritone not quite as strong as the role calls for, but he has a wonderful voice, sings well and, just as importantly, puts a great deal of character and feeling into the role of Ninetta’s conflicted father. Michele Pertusi plays Gottardo, the sleazy magistrate with the hots for the heroine – another convention of the genre and one that Pertusi, as a villainous bass, is well used to playing, and he plays up to the role reasonably well. The orchestra conducted by Lü Jia give an excellent, lively and sympathetic account of the score, even if the detail of their work isn’t all that clear on this release.

For their first foray into High Definition, Dynamic’s upgrade of this 2007 production isn’t the greatest. Previously available on DVD, the Blu-ray is scarcely an improvement on the Standard Definition version in either video quality or sound. The quality itself isn’t bad, the image remaining colourful, but it’s soft and lacking in fine detail and there is mild movement blurring. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was an up-conversion of the same master used for the SD release. The audio, available in PCM 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS HD Master-Audio 5.1 is rather thin for the orchestration, but the singing is clear throughout. It should be noted however that all the singers are wearing microphones. The BD is also one of those that ‘loads’ and takes over your player, but I didn’t notice it causing any problems. Menus, pop-ups and subtitle selection all work fine. Region free, BD50, 1080i, subtitles in Italian, English, French, German and Spanish.