| Consummate Finale of Spring Tour |
At Opra Cymru |
| Opra Cymru- Cosi Fan Tutte , Aberystwyth Arts Centre , June 8, 2023 |
A common current runs through the national companies. Modishness and stridency nudge aside fidelity and artistry. The National Museum has a tendency for the neglect of scholarship. Welsh National Opera- usually a sensible organisation- has this year not been immune. Its great weight descended upon “the Magic Flute.” Mozart and Emanuel Schikanader were found wanting, their offence to have lived in another century. In that condition they held that night and day were a commonly observed diurnal division. The company, in its twenty-first century wisdom, put them right, night and day being a binary separation constructed by a hegemonic class. The production also managed the feat, said its observers, of draining "the Magic Flute” of all joy. Happily, Wales has artists whose calling is fidelity to their art and their artistry, a true galwad. Opra Cymru, in its high-up Gwynedd redoubt, gives honour to Mozart where Cardiff Bay dealt out disapproval and dishonour. The Arts Council of Wales should, in these days of re-evaluation, look closely to that first noun in its name. This “Cosi Fan Tutte” is a confident and consummate production, on a par with the company's previous high watermark, “Oniegin” of 2014. Scottish National Opera performs in thirty-five venues across its nation this autumn. National opera in Wales shares with national theatre in Wales a dislike of the tour. Happily again audiences have Opra Cymru and Mid Wales Opera to make good the touring deficit. “Cosi Fan Tutte” has been seen from north to south, Pontio to Taliesin by way of Carmarthen, Newtown, Brecon, Pwllheli, Rhosllanerchrugog. The last Saturday of May is the hottest day of the year to date. While the public settles into its three-day weekend artists are at work. The company of this “Cosi Fan Tutte” has swelled from the first productions to a number to fit. Conductor Iwan Teifion Davies has seventeen musicians to give the score a volume that is its due. The six principal singers are backed by a chorus which is both young and of resounding quality. The ten are drawn from all points of Wales- Wrexham, Llandudno, Cardiff- and are testament to the way that Opra Cymru works. With an overhead pared to its raw minimum the company draws on the artistic ecology of opera in Wales. The chorus has come together via co-operation with the Urdd. The name Wallbank is long familiar in the credits of productions from Newtown. Here the credits run: Bridget Wallbank Rheolwr Cynhyrchiad a Dylynydd Goleuo, Beatrice Wallbank Rheolwr Llwyfan. WNO has assisted, acknowledgement given to Judith Russell a'r adran gwisgooedd o WNO. Theatr Genedlaethol has aided with the sybrwd app. In the event there is no take-up by an audience in Aberystwyth of translation. The rapport between performers and viewers is palpably direct with much immediate laughter at points of absurdity in the plot. The plot itself is indicator of the passing nature of judgement. In 2023 it is a soufflé of frivolity. Erin Gwyn Rossington's Fiordiligi and Erin Fflur's Dorabella sing duet after duet of melodic joy but are to be little judged as dramatic representations. This was not the case in 1790. Lorenzo da Ponte's plot, the male testing of fidelity, was criticised for its dishonouring of women. Beethoven was among those who disapproved. After its first performances in 1791 at Vienna's Burgtheater it was lost to the repertoire for a century. Director Patrick Young brings an assured confidence and panache to the production. The set, complex and flexible, is built around the lines and angles to be seen in a late Kandinsky painting. When John Ieuan Jones' Guigliegmo and Huw Ynyr's Ferrando make their appearance as tempters in disguise they are in the waistcoats and saggy cheesecloth trousers of Woodstock groovers. (This is a second year the Aberystwyth stage gets to chuckle at the silliness of faux-hippies. In 2022 Her Majesty's Constabulary were to be seen in rainbow dress in a Tregaron hostelry in pursuit of “Operation Julie” miscreants.) The character of Despina injects much of the dramatic energy and Leah-Marian Jones brings an authority of flourish to the role. The tone is set with her entry which involves some jokey business with a vacuum cleaner. (She has an illustrious Welsh predecessor, Carmarthenshire-born Eirian James having played Despina memorably with John Elliot Gardiner conducting.) With her period at Covent Garden she is evidence of the quality of experienced singer that Opra Cymru is able to attract. Her presence and that of Rhys Jenkins as Don Alfonso, as Patrick Young writes, “offer a wonderful learning opportunity to the younger members of the cast.” In addition to conducting Iwan Teifion Davies is also translator. His is a version rich in literary knowingness. The title “ysgol ddrud yw ysgol cariad” is a play on “ysgol ddrud yw ysgol brofiad”. Da Ponte's references to Greek mythology are replaced with those to Rhiannon, Blodeuwedd and Taliesin. Don Alfonso quotes lines from Dewi Emrys, Waldo Williams, Cynan. The enunciation of the words is sung with clarity throughout, the language all the better for the absence of the emphatic plosives that are a characteristic of English. This “Cosi fan Tutte”, two and a half hours of unabated lyric flow, brings its Saturday night audience to its feet. Other credits: Stephen Graham Dylunydd, Andrea Tynan Dylynydd Gwisgoed, Erian Owen Répétiteur, Claire Hill Rheolwr Llwyfan Cynorthwyol, Helen Pickering Ail-Goleuo. Other acknowledgements: Aelodau Capel Bethel, Pwllgor Neuadd Llan Ffestiniog, Hafren, Storyhouse Chester, Pontio. Reference: Eirian James as Despina in 1993 can be watched at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUBBR38lsTs A guide to previous productions can be seen below 16th September 2021. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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