Georges Bizet - Le Docteur Miracle
Wexford Festival Opera, 2019
Andrew Synnott, Roberto Recchia, Lizzie Holmes, Kasia Balejko, Guy Elliott, Simon Mechlinski
Clayton White's Hotel, Wexford - 31 October 2019
The libretto and situation for Doctor Miracle, as you could tell from a cursory glance through the short synopsis of Bizet's one-act opera, is very silly indeed. Silliness however should be no hindrance to producing a clever and skillful comic opera. Offenbach excelled at it, Bizet too by all accounts, but we haven't had the same opportunities to sample them, Bizet remaining basically unknown in the wider opera world outside of the ubiquitous Carmen and, if you're lucky, Les Pecheurs du Perles.
If Doctor Miracle is anything to go by you're not missing any great lost comic masterpiece, but like Offenbach's lesser known works that I've seen, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, Les Brigandes, or Chabrier's L'Etoile, if played right it has considerable potential to be hugely entertaining. Filled with silly situations involving disguises, impersonation and unlikely twists of plot, there's only one way to play such material and that's play up the silliness factor.
In Le Docteur Miracle Laurette is in love with an army captain Silvio but her magistrate father has an objection to her marrying a soldier. Undeterred, Silvio first disguises himself as a quack remedy seller Dr Miracle, selling potions out on the street as a means to surreptitiously (i.e. conspicuously) serenade Laurette. Then he disguises himself as handyman Pasquin and manages to gain a position in the household as a cook among his many duties. The omelette he makes for the family doesn't go down terribly well however, leaving them believing that they have poisoned. Fortunately Dr Miracle just happens to be nearby with a cure, provided he is given the hand of Laurette in exchange.
If Doctor Miracle has any hidden musical qualities that have eluded the attention of the opera world they weren't evident in the reduced piano score of the Wexford Festival Opera production, even when played with a lively spring by Andrew Synnott (whose own short opera La Cucina involving more unfortunate cooking consequences was premiering in Wexford this year). The opéra-comique does have one famous song, the omelette song, which is surely notable for being one of the silliest in opera, not least because the singer in this production makes an omelette live on stage during the course of the song.
And it's the making of the omelette that delivers much of the opera's fun, not only in the mouth-watering anticipation that the magistrate, his wife and daughter have to eat this delicious meal, but for the trouble it causes when it turns out to be poisoned. Not really poisoned of course, but it's enough to cause a lot of fuss and amusement, nay downright hilarity among the audience in the Roberto Recchia directed ShortWorks production of Doctor Miracle for the Wexford Festival Opera at Clayton White's hotel.
I tend to believe that only the French can really do justice to the opéra-comique farce, but quite honestly you couldn't fault the cast here for comic timing and delivery, running around and into the audience, and undoubtedly there was a good hand at work in terms of direction. Simon Mechlinski playing the Magistrate was terrific, Guy Elliott's Silvio sprightly and mischievous, Lizzie Holmes's Laurette bright and playful, Kasia Balejko the magistrate's wife Veronique also providing great comic moments in writing-off her 'poisoned' husband long before he's dead. Sung in English there wasn't anything spectacular in the songs or arrangements, but you'd be hard pushed to find a more entertaining hour at the opera.
Links: Wexford Festival Opera
Charles Villiers Stanford - The Veiled Prophet
Wexford Festival Opera, 2019
David Brophy, Una Hunt, Simon Mechlinski, Sinéad Campbell-Wallace, Mairead Buicke, Gavan Ring, John Molloy, Thomas D Hopkinson, Dominick Felix
National Opera House , Wexford - 28th October 2019
There are any number of good reasons to look forward to the Wexford Festival Opera every year, not least the town itself, the welcoming friendly atmosphere of the opera house and its stunning acoustics, but of course the main draw as far as I'm concerned is that you get the opportunity to see rare operas performed here that you are unlikely to have seen before and there's a good chance you'll never get another opportunity to see them again. That applies to Charles Villiers Stanford's The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan (1879), Wexford putting on a special one-time concert performance of an opera that only ever had a handful of performances when it was first composed and up to now has never been heard in its original English version.
What is also great about the festival recently - and I'm hoping that this year's programme is an indication that we might see more of it in the future - is that it looks to present works of Irish interest, both old and new. Andrew Synott's La Cucina this year is the first time that a new opera by an Irish composer has been commissioned and premiered at Wexford (although Synnott's superb Dubliners featured in the ShortWorks series of side events at the 2017 festival). There are older works by Irish composers that also merit attention, and Charles Villiers Stanford up until now hasn't had much recognition. His first opera, a proper grand opera on Irish writer Thomas Moore's Oriental romance poem Lalla Rookh, is one that certainly opens up a whole new area of interest for opera fans.
There's a suggestion that Moore's poem was an allusion to Napoleon and the French Revolution, but the opera itself doesn't appear to have any particular subtext other using the situation for exoticism, romance and spectacle. Perfect material for grand opera then, providing a total opera experience of high drama, romance, marches, processions, dances and a lot of colourful spectacle. Stanford composes accordingly with musical richness that appears to have at least a passing acquaintance with Wagner and it sits comfortably alongside other composers who have filtered Wagner through the French grand opera sensibility, with hints of Saint-Saëns' Oriental-influenced symphonic poems and songs (Samson et Dalila was first performed the same year), Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles and Massenet's Thaïs (which came later) with Schumann perhaps more of an influence on composition even than Wagner.
Unsurprisingly, there's a love story at the heart of the drama between Zelica, a priestess of Mokanna - the veiled prophet - and Azim a soldier who has recently converted over to Mokanna's religion and is about to lead his army into battle against the Caliph. Mokanna's desire to win Zelica for himself obviously take precedence in the plot, but the drama does take some regard for the power of an enigmatic figure who has the ability to gather a cult around him in unquestioning obedience. When at the end Mokanna attempts to take a poisoned drink and urge Zelica and some of his followers to do so, it's quite chilling and prescient of how we've seen cults operate in more recent times. Mostly however The Veiled Prophet is geared towards providing marches and choruses with swathes of exotic colouring in the musical drama and on the stage.
Although it wasn't a fully staged production, you can still get a flavour of that from the fine concert performance produced by Una Hunt for the Wexford Festival Opera. Projections created by videographer Roberto Recchia didn't so much provide traditional backgrounds as much a displaying a few Oriental scenes, storybook images and Persian rug patterns to help provide a sense of mood and colour. Alongside some text presenting scenes and stage directions it all contributed to enhancing engagement with the colour and dramatic aspect of the work, as well as providing a suitable presentation that allowed appreciation of the quality of music that might otherwise get lost in a more elaborate production. Then again, maybe not, as Stanford creates some lovely arias that are modest and lyrical expressive as well as some quite powerful dramatic scoring. Conductor David Brophy kept the momentum going, the orchestra highlighting the lovely detail evident in the score and, as you would expect in grand opera, a great dynamic range.
While it may not be an opera designed to showcase singers above the spectacle, it can certainly benefit from good singers and this presentation - the first performance of the work in English after it was translated for its original German opening production in Hanover - was well cast, all of them impressive. Sinéad Campbell-Wallace's Zelica and Mairead Buicke's Fatima in particular were outstanding, having quite challenging passages in the leading female roles, but Gavan Ring's Azim also had the requisite amount of fiery charge. Polish Baritone Simon Mechlinski as Mokanna, the veiled prophet wasn't quite as fluid in his English delivery, but certainly went out in a blaze of glory or notoriety at the powerful conclusion. With considerable choral passages, the Chorus of the Wexford Festival Opera were superb.
The unveiling of The Veiled Prophet at the 68th Wexford festival didn't perhaps reveal a great opera, but it did turn the spotlight back on a composer almost certainly undeserving of being forgotten in the opera world. But that's what the Wexford Festival Opera are there for and that's what it looks like they keep intending to do as the new artistic director Rosetta Cucchi steps in next year. Having revived quite a number of forgotten Italian bel canto and verismo composers over the years maybe there's room now for a few more old and new Irish opera discoveries.
Links: Wexford Festival Opera
Saverio Mercadante - Il Bravo
Wexford Festival Opera, 2018
Jonathan Brandani, André Barbe, Renaud Doucet, Rubens Pelizzari, Alessandro Luciano, Gustavo Castillo, Simon Mechlinski, Ekaterina Bakanova, Yasko Sato, José de Eça, Toni Nežić, Richard Shaffrey, Ioana Constantin-Pipelea
O'Reilly Theatre, National Opera House, Wexford - 24 October 2018
Wexford, if no-where else, continues to make a case for Saverio Mercadante. Falling somewhere between Rossini on one side and Verdi on the other, Mercadante has been overshadowed by two titans of Italian opera and that's a situation that is surely unjust. The world can unfortunately be unjust and essentially that is what Mercadante's Il Bravo is all about. The opera itself, pretty much obscure and forgotten, makes a good case for this sad reality.
The evidence so far in terms of the few opportunities we have had to see Mercadante staged, are that his 'hit rate' as the composer of around 60 operas surely couldn't have been lesser than that of Rossini or Verdi. Il Bravo in fact is musically much more adventurous than much of Rossini and certainly superior to early Verdi, Il Bravo coming in 1839 the same year as Verdi's debut opera Oberto. Or perhaps just a little more adventurous maybe, but certainly far enough away from the strict rules and expectations of the public to worry the critics and his audience of the time.
Where Il Bravo is perhaps a little over-ambitious however is in the nature of the drama and the plotting itself, although perhaps no more so than an audience would be accustomed to from Rossini and Verdi. The plot is perhaps too convoluted to detail, but as it is necessary to understand the impact that Mercadante is striving for, I'll make use of the Wexford Festival Opera's admirably concise early outline summary rather than attempt a full synopsis:
Set in 16th-century Venice, the Bravo of the title is a tormented character who long ago killed his wife in a fit of jealousy; unjustly accused of plotting against the state, he has been forced by the Council of Ten to become their secret hired assassin, while his father is held hostage to compel his obedience. The story also involves Pisani, a young man under sentence of banishment, in love with a girl whom he believes to be immured in Venice; Violetta, the girl in question, who has been under the protection of the Bravo since the murder of her guardian by a would-be abductor; and Teodora, a wealthy foreigner living in Venice, who turns out to be not only Violetta’s mother but also the Bravo’s wife, whom he had not killed after all.
All of the characters in Il Bravo are fighting against injustice done to them, usually by a higher human power or corrupt agency rather than fate or outrageous fortune. They consequently try to put their belief in truth and natural justice and are prepared to stand up for it, but are unjustly rewarded for their efforts. Some of the twists that lead to those conclusions however don't quite adhere to the same sense of reality or human response to situations. The disappearance of Il Bravo/Carlo's wife Violetta and her reappearance as Teodora with a daughter called Violetta is not only confusing, it's not really fully explained either, nor are the motivations clear why she is so glad to be reunited with him.
Dramatic contrivances go with the territory however and there's no denying that they have a tremendous impact. The final twist of Carlo discovering that his father has died, freeing him of his obligations as an assassin comes hot on the heels of Teodora's sacrificial suicide to free Il Bravo from his final unthinkable commission, and it's a real kicker, particularly in its musical delivery. Il Bravo is restrained in its use of big number arias, Mercadante permitting no unnecessary vocal fireworks but remaining rather dramatically attuned to the action musically and in terms of singing, allowing the drama to direct impact, with a few thunderous choruses thrown in for good measure. Rubens Pelizzari certainly lives up to the challenges of the title role of the assassin.
There are no bel canto extravaganzas or melodic flourishes either in the singing, but that doesn't make it any less demanding. Mercadante doesn't waste a scene in the opera and doesn't waste any characters. In another opera of its time Act II could be filler crowd-pleasing material but Mercadante keeps up the tension, scoring each scene for full dramatic impact. Nearly all the performers, with the exception possibly of Ekaterina Bakanova's Violetta, took time to find their feet, either too hesitant or too forced, lacking fluidity and barking our words. Under Jonathan Brandani's musical direction however, they soon warm up and the momentum of the work itself seems to carry them thrillingly along. Sometimes a little over-zealously, as is the nature of the drama where there is a lot going on and a lot of characters competing for attention but Brandini does well to reign them in and manage the powerful dynamic that is impassioned but controlled and alive to the drama.
It's also vital that the stage production goes along with this dynamic and controlled passion to deliver the necessary impacts, and despite a few unnecessary touches, André Barbe's designs and Renaud Doucet's direction for Wexford is sympathetic and in touch with the heart of the work, and it's really quite impressive looking too. It's grand and spectacular in its creative abstraction of classical Venice, with all its pomp ceremonies and splendour. The setting is largely period, the dramatic action is 'operatic' in delivery, frequently in stand and deliver mode, but this may be the best way to present Mercadante, and it would be a mistake to try to make Il Bravo contemporary and 'relevant'.
There is a half-hearted effort made in this direction but it feels contrived and doesn't really add to the themes at all, consisting mainly of tourists walking along the same Venice locations, oblivious to the true history of the place and the nature of the kind of drama that once took place there, taking selfies with the Doge and buying souvenirs. Evidently Barbe and Doucet want to at least make a token effort to bring the drama closer to home in the present day, or at least a reminder of the idea of injustice persisting, which is certainly the case for the neglect of the operas of Saverio Mercadante. The performance on the 27th October was broadcast live and is well worth a view on YouTube or ARTE Concert.
Links: Wexford Festival Opera, RTE/YouTube
