United Kingdom New Chamber Opera – Salieri, La scuola de’ gelosi: Soloists, The Band of Devices / Steven Devine (conductor). New Faculty, Oxford, 2.7.2025. (CR)
Manufacturing:
Director – Michael Burden
Solid:
Blasio – Arshak Kuzikyan
Ernestina – Kate Semmens
Rely Bandiero – Will Anderson
Countess Bandiera – Áine Smith
Carlotta – Stephanie Franklin
Lumaca – Ben Gilchrist
Lieutenant – Lawrence Thackeray
In sure methods Antonio Salieri’s La scuola de’ gelosi (right here as The Faculty of Jealousy, 1778) pre-empts Mozart’s Così fan tutte, premiered some twelve years later, not least within the different and considerably ironic title of the latter opera, ‘the college for lovers’. Within the context of its time, subsequently, it’s notable as being much less sentimental and generic than most different examples of opera buffa. Salieri’s librettist Caterino Mazzolà was an acquaintance of Lorenzo Da Ponte, and the opera was carried out in Vienna in 1783, so he and Mozart would absolutely have recognized it.
The lovers are much less harmless in Salieri’s state of affairs to start out with, nevertheless, and their jealousy is extra consciously provoked. The service provider Blasio is already suspicious about his spouse Ernestina, somewhat inciting her in exasperation to entertain Rely Bandiero’s opportunistic overtures to her. The Rely himself foreshadows Don Giovanni, within the cynical, philandering techniques he recounts in his first aria right here (not least in his willingness to stoop to decrease courses than his personal for his amorous adventures) whereas the sorrow expressed by his outraged spouse prefigures Countess Almaviva’s two nice arias in The Marriage of Figaro. Salieri’s Lieutenant is just not dissimilar to the Don Alfonso of Così, in providing recommendation to the protagonists and even, to a sure extent, goading them on – for example, he suggests to Blasio that he faux to have a love curiosity of his personal in an effort to enrage Ernestina. He even, additionally, has an identical quip, delivered in a gradual portentous melody like a chorale (which the servant Lumaca later repeats) simply as Don Alfonso presents the ‘Così fan tutte’ motto.
This open-air manufacturing within the spherical, because it have been – the vocalists performing within the grassy aisle between the 2 banks of viewers seats – affords a lot intimate motion, which they typically exploit with an virtually improvisatory freedom that engages the viewers, somewhat as singers may need completed within the smaller theatres of the eighteenth century. The proximity of the viewers alongside the boundaries of the efficiency space maybe additionally creates an aptly claustrophobic house for the lovers’ jealous anxieties and nagging ideas to play out.
Regardless of Blasio’s endemic jealousy, Arshak Kuzikyan is sort of laconic in his coolly reflective supply of the character’s ruminations whereas, as Ernestina, Kate Semmens presents discreet, thought-about coquetry. Because the aristocratic couple, Will Anderson and Áine Smith rightly present extra aptitude: he with a sure levity and nonchalance, somewhat than cynicism or pressure, she with spectacular, daring management of the Countess’s stratospheric vocal traces which Salieri should have written for a specific singer in thoughts with a high quality approach – not not like the tailored coloratura arias (K294, K316 and so forth.) that Mozart composed at across the identical time for Aloysia Weber.
Ben Gilchrist is a winningly charismatic Lumaca, effectively capable of allure the viewers along with his extra-theatrical approaches to them – definitely a Figaro (for both Mozart or Rossini) within the making as he virtuosically combines clever supply of comedian patter numbers with energetic choreography. Lawrence Thackeray is a personable, well-meaning Lieutenant right here, evincing heat and authority in his recommendation, with a slight twinkle of humour in his eye. Stephanie Franklin enhances the roguish Lumaca as a extra settled Carlotta, his counterpart as the feminine servant.
The interpretation of the libretto (initially ready by Gilly French and Jeremy Grey for Bampton Classical Opera) in a witty and idiomatic up to date English additional offers a way of comedian immediacy that Salieri’s audiences would have skilled. The eight-person ensemble of The Band of Devices beneath Steven Divine’s route from the harpsichord underline the opera’s brisk wit – skittish strings provide the fundamental temper, whereas oboes variously stir in a be aware of biting satire or melancholy. A lot enjoyable is available alongside the best way.
Curtis Rogers
