The Glenn Gould’s Spring Opera, which opened on Wednesday night, is an intriguing double bill. It pairs Rossini’s first, and rarely performed, opera; La cambiale di matrimonio with Puccini’s much better known Gianni Schicchi.
La cambiale di matrimonio (The Wedding Contract) is a one act screwball comedy (technically a farsa). It has all the plot elements that see will see over and over in later Rossini comedies; cunning servants, an old man trying to make money out of a marriage, young lovers facing obstacles etc. The plot elements are mirrored by the music; patter songs, breakneck ensembles and an impossibly florid soprano aria, inter alia. In this case they are used in the service of a plot that features a cash strapped English merchant who is trying to marry his daughter off to a rich Canadian who is seeking a suitable bride but she’s in love with a far less wealthy young man. Everyone seems to want to kill the Canadian but he’s fundamentally a nice chap (of course) and he engineers a happy ending
Il cappello di paglia di Firenze is a farce by Nino Rota, probably better known as a composer of film music particularly associated with Fellini. It’s playing right now at UoT Opera in a production directed by Jennifer Tarver. It’s an ambitious show. There’s a clever two level set, designed by Michelle Tracey,; indoors on an upper level and outdoors at stage level, and clearly a lot of thought and work has gone into both sets and costumes. The direction and choreography (Anna Theodosakis) is involved and makes use of the full space of the MacMillan Theatre with comings and goings all over the place energetically executed by quite a large cast. 
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