FRINGE 2019 OPERA: Gianni Schicchi è un’opera deliziosa!
Gianni Schicchi
Stage 16 (Holy Trinity Sanctuary Stage)
Those agile artists known as “Pop Goes The Opera” are back at it. After captivating and ingeniously staged Fringe productions, including Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana, this time they are floating Puccini’s last opera, Gianni Schicchi.
The pocket comic opera with its madcap characters and humorous plot were something new for Puccini, who mostly favoured the serious stuff. Schicchi was a riotous success when it premiered at the Met in 1919 and is one of the most produced of Puccini’s works. The best known aria, “O mio babbino caro” is a perennial show-stopper (as it is here) and is often used as a centre piece solo in stage performances by sopranos, great and small.
The local company’s light take on the work plays amidst the architectural glories and startling acoustical properties of the Sanctuary Stage of Holy Trinity Anglican Church.
It is the 14th Century, and the Donati familly, with much public weeping and wailing, are gathered to witness the passing of the wealthy Buoso Donati. Led by Zita, the family matriarch (the klacton-voiced Krista Mulbery), and the sonorous elder Gherado (Adam Sartore), each of Donati’s family members are hoping for a large dispensation in his will. When it appears that the old man has left his money to the monks, Schicchi (Bertrand Malo – ably playing a wily con man with a big authoritative singing voice and a comic style as broad as the Ponte Vecchio) concocts a scheme.
He will pretend to be Buoso Donati, still alive, and thus change his will to include the grasping family.
Rampant greed and family squabbles follow and Schicchi threatens to storm out, but is stopped by the lovely Lauretta. Christina Weiheimer plays the role with a superb performance of the aria, sings “O mio…” with such feeling that the fellow comes up with an ingenious solution that proves … well, not that love must prevail in 14th Century Florence, but sometimes a scallywag can.
Lauretta’s lover Rinuccio (Taylor Fawcett) is given a weighty fullness by the commanding romantic tenor.
The hard-working small but mighty ensemble is also adept at keeping the various locals animated and broadly comic, providing strong support for the leading players. The opera is meant to be staged at a brisk pace and peppered with bits of comic inventiveness, as it is here under Glynis Price and Kimberley Taylor-McMann’s assured direction.
This was and remains opera for the masses – slick, professional and accessible.
5 out of 5
