Deutscher - Cinderella (Wexford, 2022)

Alma Deutscher - Cinderella (Wexford, 2022)

Wexford Festival Opera, 2022

Andrew Synnott, Davide Gasparro, Megan O’Neill, Corina Ignat, Leah Redmond, Sarah Luttrell, Michael Bell, Peter Lidbetter, Deirdre Arratoon, Peter McCamley, Eoin Foran, William Kyle

O'Reilly Theatre, National Opera House, Wexford - 4th November 2022

It probably shouldn't have come as a surprise considering the quality of the Pocket Opera elements of the Festival (Cellier's The Spectre Knight and Caruso's The Master), but I was impressed with another work that was not 'mainstage' - although it was performed in the main O'Reilly Theatre to a large audience - but part of the Wexford Factory development programme for new talent. Fairy tale operas aren't often the vehicle for greatness, although in the case of Cinderella Rossini and Massenet produced some of their best work with La Cenerentola and Cendrillon, not to mention Mozart's own fairy tale opera The Magic Flute to attest to what can be done in the field by a composer of extraordinary talent, and Alma Deutscher leans towards the latter in this youth work.

Composed at the age of 11, the was no concern about the quality of Deutscher's first opera; it's not as if her Cinderella would be performed in Vienna, Salzburg and indeed Wexford if it wasn't of a high standard, but I was very pleasantly surprised nonetheless by just how accomplished this opera was in musical character and in terms of doing something original with the concept. It's probably indeed her youth, Deutscher drawing from her own nature and character, from her experience and dreams (and talent), that allow her to put a fresh and meaningful spin on the Cinderella story. A fairy tale or a fairy tale opera is nothing without a message, and being young, it's a hopeful, optimistic and uplifting one.

Using what she knows then, Deutscher's version very cleverly couches the story within the world of musical creativity. Her Cinderella is a young composer, given drudgery tasks like copying scores by her stepmother for her two aspiring diva stepsisters to sing. Nonetheless her head is filled with melodies that take shape when she is given a book of poetry by an old lady she helps in the woods. The poetry has been written by the Prince, who handed it over to the woman looking for fuel to heat herself, assuming that he had no further need for them himself. Unusually, the Prince even has motivation in this version, being forced by his father to find a wife and carry on the family line, leaving him no more time for such frivolity.

Aside from the clever idea of matching the words of music to poetry - a much more convincing twist on a shoe fitting just one person as a way of finding the love match, although it doesn't totally reject this convention either - it's a tremendous way to celebrate the magic of opera, of art, creativity and imagination combining to generate something magical, something that has the potential to lift you out of everyday life. The music and English libretto fully live up to this ambition with witty situations and spins on the original, all beautifully arranged and melodic in chamber orchestra form. There's a lot of waltz-time music, light, happy music and romantic music; it's just a joy.

The singing was exceptionally good across every role, particularly from the two leads. The romantic leads can sometimes appear a little bland in fairy take works - even in The Magic Flute - but Cinderella and the Prince have a little more personality and character here and that was brought out with with lovely singing from Megan O’Neill and Michael Bell. Leah Redmond and Sarah Luttrell have plenty of fun with the stepsisters Griselda and Zibaldona - of course - but were almost outdone in the comic stakes by Peter Lidbetter as the King and Peter McCamley in a non-singing role as the Royal Minister. Corina Ignat as the stepmother and Deirdre Arratoon as the old lady/fairy took the remaining roles in this well-cast performance perfectly.

Cinderella is simply a charming opera and it was charmingly directed and performed. Davide Gasparro took a chance on placing it all within the context of a dream rather than a straight fairy tale, but that helped overcome the number of slightly sickly and overlong happy-ever-after scenes, the only real weakness in the opera. A little touch of realism was needed here. Or, depending on what you want from an opera, maybe not. Either way, there was a wonderful lightness of touch to the humour and the comic situations elsewhere and it fitted well with Eleonora Rossi's creative use of an all-purpose bed/stage. In every aspect, from creation to performance, this Wexford Factory production fully merited a place on the main opera stage of the National Opera House.

That lightness of touch was employed also in the musical direction of Andrew Synnott with the chamber orchestra arrangements. Synnott - who has had his own opera work performed at Wexford in recent years (Dubliners, La Cucina) - again making a strong contribution here and elsewhere in the vital choral management of the mainstage operas during the Festival. Everything was kept simple, every note and gesture aiming to engage and entertain. There was some lovely comic interplay, the witty dialogue was delivered well, every character made an impression. If the intention was to demonstrate the power and the beauty of opera through the marriage of music and words, Cinderella made a convincing case for itself.

Links: Wexford Festival Opera

Tutino - La ciociara (Wexford, 2023)

Marco Tutino - La ciociara

Wexford Festival Opera, 2023

Francesco Cilluffo, Rosetta Cucchi, Na’ama Goldman, Jade Phoenix, Leonardo Caimi, Devid Cecconi, Alexander Kiechle, Allen Boxer, Carolyn Dobbin, Conor Prendiville, Erin Fflur, Julian Henao Gonzalez, Grace Maria Wain, Meilir Jones, Christian Loizou, Will Searle, Peter McCamley

O'Reilly Theatre, National Opera House - 26th October 2023

Wexford Festival Opera may be noted for its unearthing of rare works mainly from the 19th century, but the reviving of works as a way of keeping opera alive and vital also extends to programming new and recent 20th and 21st century works. It's in the context of the 72nd festival's Women & War theme that even against some notable historical competition it was a contemporary composer Marco Tutino and his opera La ciociara that proved to be the most musically and dramatically satisfying work in programme. You might think that the task of composing an opera on the subject of war might have been made easier by having the cinematic source material of the master of post-war neo-realism Vittorio de Sica to work with, which in turn is adapted from Alberto Moravia's war time experiences in Italy, but there is clearly much more to making all that into a successful opera. And indeed a challenge to stage it successfully, so we were fortunate that conductor Francesco Cilluffo and director Rosetta Cucchi were key to realising the full dramatic potential of the work for Wexford.

Composed in 2015 where it was premiered at San Francisco Opera, it's a newly revised version of La ciociara that was being performed for the first time at Wexford. For a festival specialising in reviving old and forgotten opera, Wexford manage to rack up a surprising number of premieres, also managing this year to put on the first ever staged production of the original version of a rare Donizetti opera, Zoraida di Granata. La ciociara was however even more of a coup, since in its new form at least it's an extraordinary piece of opera. It has the opera-cinematic quality of Richard Strauss in its huge dramatic and romantic sweeps, matching the dynamic and range of human experience during a time of war, but it is also thoroughly modern in how it adapts to those changes of tone and provides a consistent accompaniment to the dramatic action without ever resorting to film soundtrack backing.

Photo: Clive Barda

It's a work that more fully realises the Women & War theme of the 72nd Wexford Festival Opera. Where Zoraida and L'aube rouge struggled to get a satisfactory balance, La ciociara also has a romantic core but fully humanises it in while placing it in the context of war. And by humanising that also includes the dehumanising effect of war. There is no holding back here on the brutality and the horror that war inflicts on society and the individual. The individuals in question are Cesira and her daughter Rosetta, the 'two women' of the English version of the Moravia book and film, and Michele, the school teacher Cesira meets in the village of Sant'Eufemia when she returns to her home region of Ciociara escaping from the war in Rome.

Another aspect of the impact that war has on individuals comes in the form of Giovanni, a brute who has followed Cesira and Rosetta from Rome who joins a fascist militia. He hears that the two women and Michele have given aid to a wounded American soldier and, in a jealous rage over Cesira's blossoming relationship with Michele, he informs the local Nazi commander Von Bock - a Scarpia-like figure - which leads to a similar anguished confrontation and eventual execution of Michele, not to mention a rape scene. It's hard not to associate the musical connection and heritage of the brutality pushed by Puccini in Tosca in such scenes.

Photo: Clive Barda

You can detect the post-Wagner and post-Verdi approach to opera of Strauss and Puccini in Tutino's music, but the composer nonetheless puts a neo-Romantico spin on ot, the music dramatic, theatrical and emphatic. Musically everything goes hand in hand with the drama, enhancing the narrative and emotional tone of the piece at every stage. Not a moment is wasted, the opera simply flowing from one scene to the next. The director Rosetta Cucchi (also the artistic director of the Wexford Festival Opera) has a hand in that of course, using filmed segments to link the journey of the two women, Tutino helpfully providing linking music to mark the passage of time and distance. 

Cucchi also takes inspiration from Vittorio De Sica (Peter McCamley), the director of the film version of La Ciociara, including him as a silent figure in the drama during preparations for filming, taking in the location and imagining what he will make of each scene. That gives Cucchi licence to include a dancer figure, a representation of his inspiration perhaps, the emotional core of what he wants to capture on film, the essence of woman maybe? Strength? Endurance? It doesn't necessarily need a name or single definition, since it is really something deeper that arises out of the music that can connect on a different level with the personal experience and reaction of each person in the audience.

This is vital to the human aspect of the work, to the connection it makes with the listener and as a reflection of how the experience of war can be different for different people. It can dehumanise and inflict horror, as Zoraida di Granata and L'Aube rouge made clear earlier in the opera festival, but it can also bring out the better human qualities. Cesira in fact was not such a nice person while she was in Rome, using the war as an excuse to inflate prices in her store. Returning to what was known as the Ciociara region south of Rome, in the country, she finds a closer relationship with nature, naming the flowers and trees, finding secret paths in the woods, finding love, the contrast of the war revealing what is truly important.

Photo: Clive Barda

The opera evidently requires a strong central performance in Cesira, and you couldn't ask for better than Na'ama Goldman, or indeed praise her performance enough. She held the work together as its heart, her singing and dramatic performance absolutely exceptional. Just as remarkable was Jade Phoenix as Rosetta, the young soprano giving an amazing performance through some challenging scenes, singing absolutely superbly. The scene where she took to the front of the stage to offer up a song of prayer was a revelation, winning over the audience as she lived through the trauma and post-trauma brilliantly. Leonardo Caimi was excellent as Michele and Devid Cecconi marvellous in the thankless role of the fascist brute, Giovanni, but neither overshadowed the outstanding performances of the "two women" at the heart of the work.

Superbly directed by Rosetta Cucchi with no expense spared on the impressive production design, the staging couldn't have been in better hands. The same goes for the musical direction of Francesco Cilluffo, and the Wexford orchestra were on fire as they tend to be under this conductor. I look forward to the work he directs at Wexford every year in the assurance that it will be among the best of the festival. That was certainly the case this year in a very good main programme, but in terms of being the full package, La ciociara topped the bill and that was recognised by fierce applause and a standing ovation at the curtain call. I don't think there is any such thing as the perfect opera, but when music, drama, performance and presentation come together as well as they do here, this is as good opera gets.

External links: Wexford Festival Opera

Mascagni - Le maschere (Wexford, 2024)

Pietro Mascagni - Le maschere

Wexford Festival Opera, 2024

Francesco Cilluffo, Stefano Ricci, Lavinia Bini, Benoit Joseph Meier, Ioana Constantin Pipelea, Gillen Munguia, Matteo Mancini, Rory Musgrave, Andrew Morstein, Peter McCamley, Giorgio Caoduro, Mariano Orozco

O'Reilly Theatre, National Opera House, Wexford - 23rd October 2024

There is always a risk that Pietro Mascagni's Le maschere - like many operas that operate in a metatheatrical style - can appear to be too clever for its own good. Le maschere's conceit is not so much the 'Theatre within Theatre' theme of this year's Wexford Festival Opera however as in how it plays on traditional commedia dell'arte archetypes. Those closer to that theatrical tradition that was prominent from 16th to 18th century tend to fare rather better - Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, for example. Later works - Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges and Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos -  tend to be a little more self-referential and need to be handled more carefully, with perhaps a little bit of tongue-in-cheek. The 2024 Wexford production of Le maschere attempts to minimise the danger of the opera running away with itself by taking a more simplied approach that humanises by unmasking the commedia dell'arte figures.

Simplify maybe, but in doing so it also risks missing the point of the work, not really fulfilling the intentions of the composer or indeed the premise of Wexford's Theatre within Theatre theme. A spoken introduction attempts to introduce the commedia characters and their associated behaviour for an audience who might not be familiar with the tradition, before they remove their costumes and become 'real' people. It feels a little unnecessary, but it is one way of keeping in with the intentions of Mascagni and his librettist Luigi Illica, suggesting that we all wear the masks of roles we are expected to fulfil, and they have to be removed to find the truth and overcome the challenges that those roles - whether social, class, familial or otherwise - can end up boxing us in and come to define us.

If the choice is made to abandon the commedia dell'arte imposition of masks as a way of presenting the opera on a modern stage, the director and designer Stefano Ricci finds another amusing and suitable way of showing these 'masks' that we sometimes wear, masks that are imposed rather than those we would consciously chose for ourselves. Here, set in a Wellness Centre which doesn't overly impose on the drama, they initially even wear facial masks which works well and even suggests cleansing and detoxification. It has to be said however while there is some amount of convention in the use of a 'magic powder' to rectify the troubled situation that the characters find themselves in, Mascagni's score works its own magic to intoxicate the listener into acceptance of the familiar devices of the plotting.

Because essentially it's the age-old plot of an arranged marriage being proposed that is going to break up one or more couples, preventing them from choosing to be with the one they love. Rosaura, the daughter of Pantaleone, the owner/manager of the wellness spa here, is in love with Florindo but discovers that her father intends to marry her to Captain Spavento, a horrible military man full of his own power and proud of his killing prowess. Her maid/friend Colombina who has intentions towards Brighella, the 'medicine man' of the wellness centre, is also threatened by the advances of Spavento's sidekick Arlecchino. Spavento has no time to waste and hasty arrangements are made for a wedding the very same evening. Brighella comes up with the idea of using a 'magic powder' that will reveal truths 'in vino veritas'-like that will upset the wedding plans, but unfortunately all of them end up imbibing the powder as well.

For all its conventionality, Mascagni clearly had tremendous fun with the plot of Le maschere, the ability to play with commedia dell'arte characters and the resultant chaos that ensues between they roles they play and the truth of their inner selves when unmasked. What is also evident is the composer's desire to engage with the essential Italian character that is unique to Italian opera. It's a character that he of course more famously expressed in his hugely successful Cavalleria Rusticana - now the only work of his that still remains popular and just as powerful today - and there are signs of the epic greatness of that work in Le maschere, but somehow the subject doesn't seem to merit the passion poured into it. There is a beautiful heartfelt duet between Rosaura and Colombina, for example, that expresses the women's dilemma, but it doesn't have the tragic sense of life or death behind it. 

Mascagni also introduces lovely instrumental passages and intermezzos which might lack dramatic intensity and meaning, but are at least imaginatively staged here with dancers and comic routines. There is even an amusing homage to Rossini in Tartaglia, who stutters and stammers, but after imbibing some of the magic powder becomes a rapid fire fluid tongue-twisting Rossinian singer. If Mascagni's ambitions get a little bit above themselves with a grand celebratory conclusion that proclaims the commedia dell'arte as the great Italian art that brought the world laughter and tears, that claim could perhaps have some validity for opera, which has incorporated so many of the elements of commedia. Mascagni, less influential now, but at the time more popular than Puccini, certainly still has an important part to play in bringing that to the world.

With wonderful singing and invigorating music it's like the opera itself wears a mask, imposing heartfelt sentiments upon a slight plot. In simplifying and modifying the opera's ambitions, Stefano Ricci redirects it towards the necessary complexity of human interaction and sensitivity that Mascagni pours into the score, the production design itself another mask that serves to present another version of the truth, bringing out those human elements of warmth, love and humour. Whether the opera merits it, it's a delight nonetheless, further enhanced by some superb singing from Lavinia Bini as Rosaura and Ioana Constantin Pipelea as Colombina. The quality of the singing was fine all around and the performances wonderful, but it seemed harder for the others to break out of their character's defined and caricatured roles and express a deeper human side.

Le maschere is about masks coming off as well as being put on and the Wexford production successfully dressed this one up beautifully, striking a wonderful balance that brought the very best out of the work. The music itself is ravishing and conductor Francesco Cilluffo, as ever, succeeded in arranging, balancing and managing the sometimes overpowering sentiments of the music to match the wonderfully staged drama. Other than using a framing device, I'm not sure the opera fully lived up to the intent of the 'Theatre within Theatre' theme, but the production matched the spirit of the work in other ways and perhaps thereby may even have redeemed some of its weaknesses. 

External links: Wexford Festival Opera, RTE Streaming on YouTube