Back in 2013 I reviewed a 2009 DVD from La Scala of Donizetti’s Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali and I was not impressed.  However, having read several rave reviews for last year’s production at the Wexford Opera Festival currently being streamed on the Opera Vision channel on Youtube I decided toi check it out.  I was pleasantly surprised.  It’s still very silly but Orpha Phelan’s production with an excellent cast is actually amusing enough to carry two hours of video and was probably even more fun in the theatre.

Liberties have been taken with the libretto to good purpose.  The tenor thinks he is rehearsing for The Sound of Music and the Prima Donna’s interpolated aria is now Glitter and Be Gay!  But the basic plot is the same.  A second rate opera company makes a horrible mess of producing a new opera (it’s an actual opera seria libretto by Metastasio!) due to every opera cliché in the book.  The tenor quits in a huff, the Prima Donna refuses to sing with the Seconda Donna whose mother is the stage mother from Hell.  The singing is dreadful, especially when the tenor is replaced by the Prima Donna’s husband and the baritone by the Mamma.  And so on. Finally management pulls the plug before the first show and the company does a moonlight flit.

It’s one of those piece that requires everybody to sing, act and dance just badly enough when required while being actually very good when needed.  Two singers stand out.  Canadian soprano Sharleen Joynt sings the Prima Donna Daria Garbinati and she is excellent.  West coast readers are likely familiar with her but to the best of my knowledge her only Toronto gig was Boesman’s Julie in 2015.  She has really good coloratura and sounds wonderful in the “serious” rehearsal in Act 1 and, of course, with Glitter and Be Gay.  The other star is Paolo Bordogna who plays the drag role of Mamma.Agnata Scannagalli He really is very funny especially in Act 2 where he can’t be kept oiut of the action despite being wrapped in tape and bubble wrap and carried off by two stage hands.  I think my favourite bit where he is rehearsing the dancers and showing them the required steps.  Somewhere they found a male dancer who could partner him in some quite convincing lifts!

There are good performances too from the rest of the cast.  Alberto Robert is the tenor Guglielmo Antolstoinoff who keeps breaking out into snatches of “Edelwiss” but shows in his one brief moment that he really is a proper tenor.  Paola Leoci sings the Seconda Donna Luigia Castragatti rather well though she’s rather upstaged by the other ladies.  Giuseppe Toia is the ridiculous Procolo who plays a Roman general in sun glasses but shows he can do the proper baritone opera seria stuff when he has to.  The rest of the cast is just fine too as is the chorus.  The dancers are better than j”just fine”.  They do some really good work with very silly choreography.  Danila Grassi conducts with sensitivity to the needs of the farcical action.

It was filmed in the O’Reilly Theatre (*) at the National Opera House in Wexford and it’s a good quality 1080p recording with excellent stereo sound.  It needs to be good too as the first part of Act 2 is really dark.  It’s currently being streamed for free on the Opera Vision channel on Youtube though how long for I don’t know.

(*)I’m guessing this is named for Tony O’Reilly given his connections with Wexford.  FWIW he was the most intimidating executive I ever had to make a formal presentation to!