The programme of the 67th Wexford festival (19 October-4 November) was once again well-filled: three major opera productions, three operas in reduced form, a series of vocal recitals and various concerts. It is no secret anymore that one should go to that remarkable and unique festival of its kind, in this small town on the Irish coast, to discover forgotten, lesser-known or … new repertoire.
Because Wexford does not only rummage through the archives. It presented this year the European premiere of Dinner at Eight, the latest opera by American composer William Bolcom which premiered at Minnesota Opera in March 2017. Dinner at Eight is the fourth opera by William Bolcom (° Seattle, 1938) and the third to be performed in Europe. The libretto by Mark Campbell is based on a play by Georges S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, performed on Broadway in 1932 and later filmed with Jean Harlow. Dinner at Eight is chiefly a comedy about a disastrous dinner, richly larded with elements of greed, infidelity and addiction and performed by a series of characters who only worry about their own little problems while around them Manhattan groans under the Depression. Since the play is situated in that period, the score contains many musical influences from the thirties, especially jazz and blues. Bolcom has, not without success, tried to combine the best elements of European opera and American musical. The result is a charming and entertaining performance in which the real dramatic moments are ultimately engulfed in the general maelstrom, the guests for the "dinner at eight" mingle their voices in a closing ensemble and the nervous hostess nevertheless shows much tenderness for her care-stricken husband.
In his staging, Tomer Zvulun with the help of Alexander Dodge (set), Victoria Tzykun (costumes) and Robert Wierzel (lighting) succeeded in creating a distinctive atmosphere for the various scenes and giving the action the necessary élan, aided by a cast that was convincing both scenically and vocally, with much spirit and an expressive soprano voice led by Mary Dunleavy as Millicent Jordan, the hostess of the disastrous dinner. Stephen Powell was excellent as Oliver Jordan, her business-troubled husband. Craig Irvin and Susannah Biller drew a convincing portrait of the undistinguished couple Packard, only out for their own advantage. Brenda Harris was a picturesque old diva Carlotta Vance and the hopelessly addicted Larry Renault found a credible interpreter in Richard Cox. But the entire cast deserves praise for the well-profiled characters and homogeneous ensemble. David Agler led the Wexford Festival Opera orchestra with flair and a deft hand.
Il Bravo: virtuoso duets
Although he is compared more than once with Verdi, Saverio Mercadante (1795-1870) is not a popular composer and today even quite unknown. Not so in Wexford, where five of his operas have been presented since 1988, this year supplemented with Il Bravo, an opera created at La Scala in Milan in 1839. The libretto by Gaetano Rossi and Marco Marcello is based on the play La Vénitienne by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois, which itself was inspired by the novel The Bravo by James Fenimore Cooper. It is the fairly complicated story of Carlo Ansaldi, a tormented man who believes he has killed his wife and was forced by the "Council of Ten" of Venice to become their secret assassin, a "Bravo". He fulfills that task with great reluctance to save his father who is in prison awaiting his execution. Carlo helps a young couple in love, finds his wife again whom he therefore did not murder, but will ultimately lose all the people dear to him. Mercadante composed a score for this drama in which a musical development of the "recitativo accompagnato" stands out, thereby enhancing continuity and dramatic tension. Remarkable is that he chose two sopranos (Violetta and Teodora) and two tenors (Il Bravo and Pisani) for the main roles, which results in more than one virtuoso duet.
The premiere of Il Bravo was well received and the opera had more than a hundred performances in the 19th century before virtually disappearing from the bill and giving way to Verdi's operas. Conductor Jonathan Brandani and the festival orchestra gave much fire and colour to Mercadante's score. So did the choirs (in Wexford always composed of beautiful, young voices). Rubens Pelizzari lent his robust tenor to the brave but tormented Bravo and was more convincing than Alessandro Luciano (Pisani), with a lighter voice and a less profiled interpretation. Ekaterina Bakanova gave Violetta a very beautiful turn, giving youth, charm and a pure and expressive vocal rendering. Yasko Sato had more difficulty with the character of Teodora, which she sang somewhat more laboriously with a somewhat harsh soprano. Gustavo Castillo let Foscari be heard as a baritone with core. Why the director Renaud Doucet found it necessary to mix this 15th-century story with references to modern-day Venice, flooded with tourists and plagued by cruise ships, is a mystery to me. What are the references? The set combined styles and periods, the costumes (André Barbe) were historical except of course for the jeans and sneakers of the tourists. Sounding the alarm for "aqua alta" was completely unnecessary!
L'Oracolo and Mala Vita: extra dramatic elements
The Wexford festival has not only combined two short veristic operas, L'Oracolo by Franco Leoni (1905) and Mala Vita by Umberto Giordano (1892), in a single evening. The directing team Rodula Gaitanou, Cordelia Chisholm (set and costumes) and Paul Hackenmueller (lighting) have situated them in the same context and décor: an American Chinatown and the Little Italy of New York in the early years of the 20th century. This would certainly have pleased the Neapolitans who at the time did not appreciate at all that the rather unedifying story of Mala Vita, set in the slums of their city, was shown on the stage of their prestigious Teatro San Carlo.
L'Oracolo, created at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London under the musical direction of André Messager, is a story that combines innocent love, greed, betrayal, shame, murder and revenge in sixty minutes, carried by a colourful score with a certain local colour and exotic fragrance. The staging has further emphasized the "Grand Guignol" character of the story, in a production full of movement and dramatic moments, carried by a homogeneous ensemble and a particularly active choir involved in the action, plus a picturesque children's choir. Cim-Fen, the boss of an opium den and a true scoundrel, had the presence and expressive baritone of Joo Won Kang. He was well surrounded by Sergio Escobar (Uin-San-Lui), with a sunny tenor, and Leon Kim (Uin-Sci), with sonorous tones and a homogeneous and convincing cast. With a few adjustments, Chinatown transformed into a neighbourhood of Little Italy where Vito lives suffering from tuberculosis. He promises, if he can be cured, to marry a fallen woman and gives his word to Cristina. But Vito cannot free himself from his mistress Amalia and leaves Cristina in despair. Here too, Rodula Gaitanou has added an extra dramatic element to her staging: she has Cristina shoot herself. Even without Cristina's suicide, it was considered in Italy that Mala Vita was too shocking. However, this was not the opinion of the renowned critic Eduard Hanslick who, after a performance in Vienna, was greatly impressed by the talent of Umberto Giordano and "verismo". Apparently he was especially moved by the role of Cristina, as performed by Gemma Bellincioni. In Wexford, it was the soprano Francesca Tiburzi who lent her ample voice and expressive singing to the outcast woman who believes in a moment of happiness, an illusion shattered by the jealous Amalia, a sexy Dorothea Spilger, spirited and full of vocal fire. Sergio Escobar was the weak, egocentric Vito and sang with supple tenor. Leon Kim put down a macho Annetiello, Amalia's husband, with husky voice. The minor roles were excellently cast and the choirs, which effortlessly changed from Chinese to Neapolitans, celebrated every time with fire and vocal engagement. Francesco Cilluffo conducted the Wexford Festival Opera orchestra with a firm hand, realized beautiful dramatic tension and gave temperament and colour to the Chinese and Neapolitcan festivities.
Opera reductions
The ShortWorks productions operas, reduced to approximately an hour and a half and accompanied by piano, are performed in a large hall of the Clayton Whites Hotel. This year these were Puccini's La fanciulla del West, Donizetti's Don Pasquale and a compilation "Bernstein à la carte". Although perhaps Fanciulla del West was the most difficult to reduce, it was the most successful of the three productions, carried by the convincing Elisabetta Farris as Minnie and thanks to the excellent young singers who make up the Wexford choir, but they did excellently as the various gold miners. Don Pasquale offered, in the performance I attended, three interpreters for the role of Norina: the intended singer who that day had no voice and played the role and alternately assisted by a colleague soprano and... the singing pianist who stepped in where needed. And in the minor roles of the "major" operas, there were also two beautiful, sonorous voices to be heard: baritone Simon Mechlinski (Malatesta) and bass Toni Nezic (Don Pasquale).
- WHAT: William Bolcom (°1938) – Dinner at Eight | Saverio Mercadante (1795-1870) – Il Bravo | Franco Leoni (1864-1938) – L'Oracolo | Umberto Giordano (1867-1948) – Mala Vita
- WHERE: Wexford Festival Opera (19 October to 4 November 2018), Ireland
- WHEN: Thursday 1 to Saturday 3 November 2018
- WEBSITE: https://www.wexfordopera.com/