[From OPERA, December 2014, pp. 1572-3]
At a time
when Haydn seems increasingly sidelined in the concert hall—at least in
Britain, where not a single work of his was programmed in the 2014 BBC Proms—we
should welcome any opportunity to hear one of his 15 operas. It’s just a shame,
then, that despite ETO’s best (and arguably slightly excessive) efforts, his Il
mondo della luna proved so forgettable on the first night of the company’s
autumn season. There’s plenty of charming music, of course, the Act 2 finale in
particular, but it does nothing to flesh out the entirely conventional
characters of Carlo Goldoni’s libretto, two of which, including the castrato
role of Ernesto, had in any case been quietly excised from ETO’s show
(performed in James Conway’s witty translation). It’s also a work that betrays the
circumstances of its commission in every bar: as a jolly entertainment composed
to celebrate an Esterházy family wedding in 1777, it’s a comedy that’s all
molar and no incisor.
Perhaps
acknowledging its deficiencies, the company had engaged Cal McCrystal (whose
credits include being Physical Comedy Director for the National Theatre’s One
Man, Two Guvnors) to squeeze the laughs out of the material—and then pile
on plenty more on top. As such, with a cast giving its all, and attractive
designs by takis—a Baroque garden that gave much scope for visual gags, and
which was draped in white for the ‘moon’ in Act 3, plus lots of imaginative
lunar costumes—there was no denying that there was a full evening’s worth of
clowning around, even if, by the second half at least, I’d started to feel
immune.
The whole
thing would have been a lot less convincing, however, had it not been delivered
by singers so clearly having a great deal of fun, right from an
introduction—containing an account of the action, as well as gentle mocking of
the cast—by the tenor Ronan Busfield. He also bore a great deal of the comic
burden as the servant Cecco, which drew attention away from some eminently
decent singing. As his boss, the quack astronomer Ecclitico, Christopher Turner
sang and acted with relish. Andrew Slater brought easy volume and plenty of
comic bluster to the duped Buonafede. Jane Harrington, as Clarice (the two
daughters for Buonafede in the original were here amalgamated into one) didn’t
quite have the agility for all of Haydn’s demands, but sang with spirit, as did
Martha Jones as Lisetta, Buonafede’s predictably spunky maid.
Christopher
Bucknall managed to highlight some of the score’s delights, which mainly
featured the mellifluous wind soloists of the period-instrument Old Street
Band; the string playing was occasionally a little raw, but buoyant and lively.
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