Gounod – La colombe

Mazet – Melanie Lang / Rowan Hellier

Maitre Jean – Jean-Philippe Elleouet

Horace – John Bacon / Adrian Ward

Sylvie – Emily Rowley-Jones / Daire Halpin

Aminte – Lily Papaioannou

Rossini – L’occasione fa il ladro

Parmenione – Benedict Nelson / Lukas Kargl

Martino – Ritz de Ridder

Conte Alberto – Amar Muchhala / Carlos Nogueira

Don Eusebio – Nicky Spence

Ernestina – Emily Steventon / Melanie Lang

Berenice – Lisa Wilson / Sarah Power

Conductor – Andrew Greenwood

Director – Alessandro Talevi

Designer – Madeleine Boyd

Lighting – Matthew Haskins

Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London 16 & 18 June 2008

Two comedies written at just the moment when their composers were emerging from the chrysalis and beginning to stretch their wings in two beautifully constructed miniatures.*  Neither of these operas will be familiar to most opera goers.  Apart from glorious tunes, the music is skilfully shaped to reveal the subtle balance between human frailty and folly.

Sadly there is nothing at all subtle about this production.  Alessandro Talevi’s direction plays both for full bodied belly-laughs – and gets them – clearly a large part of the audience were vastly entertained.  What he misses is the link between the pieces: each plot hinges on a central character who starts full of audacity and ready to exploit whatever opportunity will serve their cause, but their characters are completely altered when they unexpectedly fall in love.  We need to see this transformation and believe in it.  Daire Halpin achieved this with charming naturalness, but Emily Rowley-Jones’ Sylvie remained falsely brittle to the end.  Neither Parmenione’s were directed to show any sign of remorse as both continued to pursue anything in a skirt.  Other singers who clearly needed directional help were left looking rather ham-fisted.

Musically things were a lot better, as would be expected from the enviable array of talented singers who make up GSMD’s current Opera Course.     Melanie Lang’s Mazet was especially strongly sung with polished pronunciation; Jean-Philippe Elleouet’s major domo was splendidly authoritative, especially as his two solos had to struggle for attention against major set pieces for the silent ensemble players; and Adrian Ward’s Horace was a sheer delight of intelligent portrayal.

Benedict Nelson, Lisa Wilson, Amar Mucchala and Sarah Power all showed the potential to tackle larger Rossini roles in time to come.

Andrew Greenwood conducted  – he is used to large ensembles in big spaces – a little more scaling down might have been in order, but his enthusiasm suited the bravado of the evening.

A good night for the audience, but one which I suspect would have satisfied neither composer.

Serena Fenwick

Other opinions: We too saw this double bill, with the second casts, and thoroughly enjoyed it for Talevi’s inventive approach which, for us, did not undermine the music, which sounded well balanced from the back of the theatre.

Gounod’s music was the more ‘collectable’ and his peculiar story which involved cooking pet birds in the cause of love, held the attention. Rossini's score proved thin, formulaic and forgettable – even more so in the comparably conventional (and no better sung) version on DVD from the Schwetzingen Festspiele [Euroarts 2054998]. But at the Guildhall, updated to air travel etc, it was saved by the immensely funny staging, adding up to a great evening off the mainstream. To exemplify how opera generates healthy debate read also, in The Times, Neil Fisher, who had an opposite take to ours on the two pieces, noting “the disparity between Rossini's little gem and Gounod's weird amuse bouche” [Editor]

* Correction: I am grateful to a reader for pointing out my careless error in describing La Colombe as an “early” work – to set the record straight, at the time of composition Gounod was 42 years old and had just written Faust. [SF]

Photos c. Nobby Clark