Viva la Mamma (also known as Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali) may be Donizetti’s most intentionally silly opera (though some of the “serious” operas rival it for silliness).  It’s a farce and should be treated as such which is exactly what Maria Lamont’s production for UoT Opera, currently playing at the Elgin Theatre, does.

It’s the story of a touring opera company in southern Italy trying to put on an opera seria.  Singers drop out.  The prima donna and seconda donna squabble over who gets to sing what and the seconda donna’s overbearing mother shows up to further complicate matters.  The rehearsals are a disaster, the money runs out and the company does a moonlight flit.  In this case the show does not go on!

Pulling it off successfully needs careful direction and a willingness in the singers to be just OTT enough while remaining musical where, and only where, that’s required.  That all happens here.  Daria, the prima donna, is sung by Camille Labonté and she has the vocal chops to sing probably the hardest music in the opera while acting brilliantly as every director’s nightmare prima donna.  Kathleen Battle could learn a few tricks! She’s well matched by Josh Gibson as Agata, la mamma.  This is a role for a baritone en travesti and like all such roles requires a commitment to making that aspect as silly as possible.  It’s also one of those roles where the singer has to sing badly deliberately at times.  Gibson manages all this very well.

There’s lots more good singing and acting from the harassed trio of Owen Phillipson as the impresario, Mena Lukic as the Maestro and Sloane Ryan as the librettist who does frustration extremely well.  Onur Hilalǒglu as Daria’s husband Procolo is especially good as the ridiculous leading man in the opera seria rehearsals in Act 2.  Enquan Yu, as the German tenor, is suitably lugubrious but with some fine singing to a possibly recognisable tune.  Whoever decided to do Gothic letters for his surtitles is genius too. The other roles are all well done and the chorus is really good especially, again, in the second act.

Russell Braun conducts a very good student orchestra and manages to get the stage pit balance right which isn’t always easy in the Elgin.  Rightly, he treats the orchestral part with due seriousness.  In many ways it’s the “straight man” to the stage comics in this piece.

Sharp direction, excellent comic acting, very good singing and mastery of the Elgin acoustics.  There’s not more one could ask for in this piece.  It plays again tonight, Saturday and Sunday with some cast changes for Friday/Sunday.

Photo credit: Richard Lu