Haydn, after Piccinni
Buxton International Festival
Pavilion Arts Centre, Buxton
July 7,11,18,20, 2024: 50 minutes
Haydn wrote this short “intermezzo” to be a bit of light relief in a full evening of opera seria (the old-fashioned, heavyweight sort) for his aristocratic masters at Eisenstadt in 1766.
La Canterina is for four characters, two of them in gender-bending dress (almost like a British pantomime: the young man is a mezzo-soprano, and there’s a man comically costumed because he’s pretending to be an older woman), and the story is about a young and self-interested girl singer with three guys after her. One is her true love (but pretends to be her mother because they’re short of cash); one is a nobleman who’s besotted with her (the mezzo-soprano), and one is her singing teacher (a tenor), who fancies himself as a composer.
It's got simple gags and near-farcical situations, but, Haydn being Haydn, there’s a lot of good music and a rather nice send-up of the kind of operatic aria of his time (which the heroine has to try to learn) that had endless orchestral ritornelli between the singing.
It’s all good fun, despite the appearance of a bailiff, and ends well after the titular heroine throws a fainting fit and both the men who fancy her (without hope of success) throw their bling and their money her way – with remarkably reviving results (she can smell cash, of course).
Lysanne Van Overbeek directs a straightforward staging in the small Pavilion theatre at Buxton (with a carpet, a modicum of furniture, and costumes from designer Elliott Squire), and the four performers – three of them also employed in the chorus for the bigger Verdi production in the International Festival – have a great time. Jane Burnell is the singer, Gasparina (she’s also Giovanna in Ernani), is ex-RNCM and has performed for Clonter Opera and shows she’s got a comedic gift as well as a lovely voice. Helen Maree Cooper (Don Ettore, the mezzo) is equally versatile; and Jonah Halton (Don Pelagio, the composer/singing teacher) is a tenor with power in his delivery and farce in his bones. Dominic Mattos sings “Apollonia” – the role that’s actually a man but has him dressed as, and pretending to be, Gasparina’s mother – and reveals a counter-voice of rare beauty.
There’s a small orchestra (the Buxton Chamber Collective) drawn from the BIF Young Instrumentalists Programme and conducted by Toby Hession from Scottish Opera – a real musician of great skill and sure touch at the fortepiano.
More info and tickets here
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