On Friday night the COC presented a one-off concert style performance of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana.  Concert style, in this case, meaning the orchestra on stage with the chorus behind them and the soloists singing from music stands at the front of the stage.  There were some projections behind the stage.

I’ll be honest and say I don’t think it’s a great opera though I know it has its fans.  The plot is extremely formulaic and so, for the most part, is the music.  That said, given a sufficiently inventive production it can be quite enjoyable.  However, with no production at all that just isn’t the case.  Some operas transfer better to concert performance than others.  Generally speaking, the more idea driven and abstract the opera, the better it works in that format.  Unfortunately Cavalleria Rusticana doesn’t have a single interesting idea and it has a lot of scenes that rely on visuals.  Absent the visuals the relatively long stretches of orchestral music feel a lot like listening to a film sound track without the film.

That said, the performance was really quite good.  The men especially; Russell Thomas as Tuyriddu and Andril Kymach as Alfio, sang with power and passion and Thomas has impressive high notes.  The ladies were pretty good too.  Marjorie Owens was a late replacement j the key role of Santuzza and she sang this rather maudlin role with skill.  She was well supported by Emily Treigle as Mamma Lucia and Queen Hezumuryango as Lola.  The impact of the chorus was a bit diminished by being tucked away behind the orchestra.  This opera has some big chorus scenes and they didn’t really have the necessary bite in this format.  The orchestra sounded fine and Johannes debus’ conducting was efficient without having the fire one gets from someone like Antonio Pappano in a piece like this.

Basically, a gallant effort but not really an opera that works well as a concert.