Opera enthusiasts should take a trip to Wexford
Friday, 25th October, was World Opera Day, a collaboration among Opera America, Opera Europa and Opera Latinoamérica. Festivities at the annual Wexford Festival Opera, held since 1951 in Ireland’s south eastern corner, were already in full swing.
There was even a celebratory cake, an enormous cake, a stage dominating turquoise-and-white-iced, three-tiered, humungous cake, in and on top of which much of the action of Rossini’s opera, Adina, took place. Including a hanging! The cake was baked during La cucina, the first part of an innovative double bill. More of that bake-off and the bonkers, mute, master cake-maker later. Wexford madness was set at full throttle.
The Wexford Festival Opera is an unlikely musical gem. Founded by Dr. Tom Walsh, a local GP, in 1951 – at the suggestion of author Compton Mackenzie – it has prospered for 68 years. It thwarts convention, its repertoire always challenging. Few old, familiar, favourites here. Actually, none!
Wexford may be in the boondocks, but it is no cultural backwater. Rather than churn out familiar repertoire, the Wexford team relentlessly pursues Dr. Walsh’s original idea, bringing lost works back from obscurity. Some deserve resurrection. Others do not. What the heck? If you don’t try… Opera aficionados in search of hidden treasure flock – literally – from across the globe.
The casting squad scours Europe for upcoming talent to perform. Wexford Festival Opera has a loyal clientele and the three operas performed over a 13-day cycle in late October and early November each year are sell outs. Some regulars have been attending for 40 years. My first visit was in 1978.
This year the three mainstage operas were; Jules Massenet’s Don Quichotte, Antonio Vivaldi’s Dorilla in Tempe; and a double bill of the premiere of Irish composer, Andrew Synnott’s La cucina, paired with Gioachino Rossini’s Adina. David Agler, Artistic Director of Wexford Festival Opera since 2005 leaves this year. He went out in a blaze of glory.
Don Quichotte broadly follows the original Cervantes’ Don Quixote plot. Massenet was one of a brace of late 19th/early 20th century French composers whose eyes often strayed to Spanish material. Think Hector Berlioz and Carmen. Not that they visited Spain much. They just could not resist the insistent rhythm of traditional Spanish dance.
This was a production built by Wexford Festival Opera and directed by Rodula Gaitanou, the Greek producer, who has delivered three other Wexford productions; Vanessa (2016); and Mala vita and L’Oracolo (2018).
Small wonder Wexford keeps asking him back. This Don Quichotte was a triumph. Balancing the absurdity of the Quichotte character – whose infatuation with the clearly flirtatious courtesan, La Belle Dulcinée is comically headed for the slough of disappointment – with the opera’s theme of the gallant knight’s principles – overcoming cynicism and ultimately triumphing over all as he dies, joining Dulcinée as his shining star in the heavens – calls for knife-sharp subtlety, as contrarian moods ebb and flow.
This was Mr. Gaitanou’s Wexford masterpiece. I hope Rosetta Cucchi, who has been Mr. Adler’s no. 2 since 2005 and takes over as artistic direction next year, will keep Mr Gaitanou on the books.
The scenery was inspired. Backdrops of idyllic, glowing sunsets, fleeting clouds and rural trappings gave the impression of being in the middle of a late Turner painting. The only failure was an awkward attempt to depict Quichotte being lifted on a windmill blade, after a bout of ill-advised tilting, by simply hauling him unceremoniously skywards, harness and wire visible to all. And, Rocinante, the knight’s trusty steed, was a knackered Vespa. Sancho, his long-suffering sidekick, rode a bike. A bit smart-assed.
Dorilla in Tempe is a baroque opera on a grand scale. This was a production of La Fenice theatre, Venice, directed by Fabio Ceresa. He is an Italian director with a string of successes to his credit, many at La Scala, Milan, where he was Assistant Director from 2008 – 2014.
It was a sumptuous production – probably well beyond the scope of Wexford’s own limited budget, set against a glistening white, classical backdrop with contrasting, draping foliage signalling the changing of the seasons and adorned with spectacular costumes.
Time for honesty. I don’t really like Baroque opera. I find it long winded, the over-staged classical themes boringly “samey”. There’s always some God or other descending at the last minute to put everything right, having, in mortal form, screwed everything up in the first place. Suggestion. Cut the endless repeats, when even the surtitles fall blank out of sheer ennui, and trim 40 minutes off the run time. Everyone happy.
These works were written ten-a-penny in their day, performed once or twice then dumped. That is why so few original scores remain. They can’t be taken seriously, so the staging has to be spectacular to grab attention. This Fenice production worked on that count. But, I’m not sure bringing it to Wexford served any purpose, other than economy. Vivaldi wrote 94 operas. Only 50 are extant, in whole or in part.
These were disposable items, dashed off to catch the eye and ear, then be forgotten. You will own a CD of The Four Seasons. You would quickly twig the Vivaldi recycling factory had been hard at work on the Dorilla in Tempe score. Same themes, different instruments, bits chopped and changed, maybe some bars played backwards. Who knows? Bit of a mishmash musically.
La cucina and Adina was an adventurous double bill. The action in Adina – usual Rossini romp of Calif wanting girl, threatening girl’s lover with execution, (that was the hanging at the top of the cake), realising at last minute that girl’s mother is his lost love Zora, hence he is girl’s father … all live happily, etc. – takes place within the wedding cake. Someone dreamt up the idea of having the “prequel” set as a piece in which the cake was baked.
Step up Andrew Synnott, a Dublin based composer, who has written mostly for theatre. La cucina was theatrical to a fault. His composition and the double billing worked beautifully, with some of the comedic characters of the first, carrying through to the second. Unlike many clunky double billings, these two works blended well. Mr. Synnott writes melodically, with harmonic subtlety, which is unfashionable. Nothing wrong with that.
A special plaudit for Luca Nucera, an Italian actor, who played the dumb, world famous chef, Alberto in La cucina. He had been struck dumb when a cake baked for La Scala collapsed. His sponge failed to rise. You have to sympathise. I mused it was a shame a similar fate had not befallen some of today’s hyperventilating celebrity TV chefs.
Alberto then provided a strong visual link in Adina, developing the role of a demonstrative mute, often as a foil to Adina – mirroring all her moods. Signore Nucera was skilled – and hilarious, his spare gangling frame and mobility of expression providing a running commentary, often more telling than the on-screen surtitles. The conception of his comedic role was inspired. He is maestro of the arch, sideways glance.
It was an afternoon of tightly stage-managed humour, with sharp use of the chorus to help deliver the laughs and the treat of a truly outstanding south African lyrical tenor making his Wexford debut in Adina; Levy Sekgapane, singing the role of Selimo, the heroine’s lover. His voice was a lustrous, well timbred wonder. He is making waves internationally and is my Wexford artist of 2019 to watch.
Adina is just one of a raft of operas of the era depicting the Turk in an …. alert department of understatement! …. unfavourable light. Turks were the butt of western composers from Mozart – Seraglio – to Rossini, who wrote four Islamic comedies; La Pietra del paragone (1812), L’italiana in Algeri (1813), I’l turco in Italia (1814) and Adina (1816). The Whac-A-Turk formula couldn’t fail. Against the political backdrop of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, the evil Turk was fair game; outrageously prejudiced racial stereotyping. Adina was the least offensive opera of the quartet. The Calif turned out to be just a dad – in the end.
On to next year. The 2020 programme again has three main stage productions. For the first time the festival will be themed – Shakespeare. Why? Ms. Cucchi is short on explanations, other than saying focus will be on the themes of love, fun and the darker side. That’s Shakespearean.
The operas are: Ein Wintermärchen, by Austrian composer, Karl Goldmark. Based on Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale and first performed in 1908 it has a quite well-known overture, but otherwise is a bit of a mystery. It is hardly ever performed.
Le Songe d’une nuit d’été by Ambroise Thomas (come on, you can work it out for yourselves) is a typical Wexford trompe l’oeil – as it isn’t based on Shakespeare’s play at all. It is a comic opera in which Shakespeare figures along with Queen Elizabeth I and Falstaff. The work was performed rarely and was roundly criticised in England in 1852 as a perfidious Gallic attempt at dissing the bard. Thomas was lucky not to be impeached.
To push Le Songe right off the bizarreometer scale, the work was revived in 1994 at the Théâtre Impérial de Compiègne, to celebrate the opening of the Channel Tunnel. Maybe it’s being brought to Wexford in 2020 to celebrate Brexit. If so, it may have to be postponed.
Edmea, by Alfredo Catalani, first performed at La Scala, Milan in 1886, has nothing to do with Shakespeare whatsoever. The action takes place in Bohemia, in a castle on the banks of the Elbe, into which the heroine, Edmea, falls, emerging under the illusion that she is the fairy of the river, in search of a king who once loved her. A touch of Ophelia, perhaps? This is not taut, 19th century verismo. Perhaps Ms. Cucchi will find a closer Shakespeare connection before next October.
Fortunately, Wexford has a track record of performing bizarre, unknown works with some success. Puccini’s Edgar in 1980 springs to mind. Ms. Cucchi in her first year as artistic director has clearly decided to push the boat out, head for the rapids, and ignore the upcoming waterfall of potential criticism that will greet her if she screws this up. She is putting her stamp on the festival with a vengeance.
This year Wexford has a new Chairwoman, Dr. Mary Kelly. She takes over from the successful Ger Lawlor, who steered the festival through choppy financial waters. Dr. Kelly has bravely assumed the tradition of standing at the theatre door, greeting each and every attendee. It may seem a small touch, but it underpins the strength of the “Wexford family”. 2020 looks like being a vintage year. Book early to avoid disappointment.