La cucina - Synnott / Adina - Rossini & Don Quichotte – Massenet
The Wexford Festival Opera, which began in 1951 under a group of opera lovers led by Tom Walsh, goes from strength to strength. David Agler’s tenure as the seventh Artistic Director in Wexford’s history comes to an end this year and his wonderful associate Artistic Director Rosetta Cucchi has been appointed to take over. Agler will have had 13 years at the helm; one year more than Elaine Padmore, but one year less than the first Artistic Director, Tom Walsh himself.
The original Theatre Royal, which was renovated in 1960/61 with roughly 500 seats, was so steeply cast that it was a mountaineering exercise to reach the different rows of seats at the back of the circle. The current 775 seater O’Reilly Theatre opened in 2008 as the National Opera House and David Agler’s role in this development in Wexford High Street is not to be underestimated. The Festival goes from strength to strength and 2019 was no exception with two successes reported here and a third Dorilla in Tempe by Vivaldi reportedly being ‘rather long’!
Image taken from the Wexford Festival Opera website
La cucina/Adina 24 October 2019
The new Artistic Director Rosetta Cucchi teamed up with the Irish Composer/Music Director Andrew Synnott to put together a new short opera La cucina. The music by Synnott was easily accessible with some real strength and was matched beautifully by Cucchi’s libretto, which was amusing and at times quite poignant. Cucchi cleverly tied this opera with Rossini’s Adina so that the two productions fell into one with the huge triple tiered cake ‘in the kitchen‘ being the main centre point for the set in Adina. It all flowed beautifully with the farcical Rossini pantomime centred round the huge wedding cake. There was fun everywhere in the theatre with much typical Rossini lovers - and their mistaken identities.
But, everything starts with La cucina with the action taking place in a kitchen where the chefs are baking a wedding cake for a high society wedding. The Irish soprano Maire Flavin in her debut at the Festival is an excellent sous-chef Bianca with the cream of the comedy going to her assistant Camillo sung by the excellent Mexican baritone Emmanuel Franco. The ensemble of the comedy part included the Zeno of Sheldon Baxter and the Tobia of Manuel Amati with the Alberto being the Italian actor Luca Nucera.
However, the voice of this night was the Irish mezzo soprano Rachel Kelly, who produced outstanding lines and quality with her true lover Selimo being the South African Rossini tenor specialist Levy Sekgapane. His light high and clear noble line produced a voice of real quality. The Caliph was a deep voiced bass baritone Daniele Antonangeli with great support from the Ali of Manuel Amati and Mustafa of Emmanuel Franco. Wonderful set designs were by Tiziano Santi with colourful costumes designed by Claudia Pernigotti and focus lighting by Simon Corder.
Image taken from the Wexford Festival Opera website
Don Quichotte 25 October 2019
The real star opera of the 2019 Festival was Jules Massenet’s Don Quichotte, written toward the latter part of his life. It is perhaps one of Massenet’s most wonderfully lyric scores, where the librettist Henry Cain cleverly takes the major parts of Cervante’s huge work and matches it perfectly with the music to enable the audience to enjoy two hours of beautiful opera.
It helps that the American Conductor Timothy Myers is clearly on top of the delightful score and provides the music with great colour and pace. The Greek Director Rodula Gaitanou worked cleverly through the five acts, with some reservation on the last, but with great support from the Greek Set and Costume Designer Takis. The Lighting Designer Simon Corder enlivened the audience with his stunning sunrises and sunsets. It is perhaps a shame that Quichotte’s death scene in Act 5 was somewhat poorly constructed by the composer and was underwhelming both visually and musically. The opera easily could have finished quite cleverly at the end of a strong Act 4!
The Director was fortunate that the lead role of Dulcinee was sung by the very young Russian mezzo soprano Aigul Akhmetshina – a summer 2019 Carmen at the Royal Opera House. She possesses a truly outstanding vocal instrument of real substance, quality and tone and is undoubtedly an artist with the potential for a great career ahead.
Her Don Quichotte was the Georgian bass Goderdzi Janelidze. He has a beautiful sound, but this young artist is still occasionally insecure and uneven in his vocal production. The character role of Quichotte’s bagman Sancho was sung by the Icelandic baritone Olafur Sigurdarson, whose large voice filled the theatre. The sound from the Chorus was also of real substance throughout the night and congratulations here must go to the Chorusmaster Errol Girdlestone.
In the end the glory of the music shone through and was not only a testament to David Agler’s artistic role, but undoubtedly a pleasant surprise to the new Chairwoman Dr Mary Kelly - who has taken over this year - and the Wexford president Sir David Davies.
