(Photo: Patricio Cassinoni)

At his best, Donizetti is a master of the comic opera, with works such as “Don Pasquale” and “L’Elisir d’Amore” still playing to packed houses almost 200 years after their premieres. Others, however, are less well-known; his 1831 one-act farce, “Le Convenienze ed Inconvenienze Teatrali,” being a case in point. Few people will have heard of it, and fewer will have seen a live performance, which made it a perfect work for a production by the Wexford Festival Opera, which specializes in reevaluating neglected or rediscovered operas.

It was brilliant! The audience was doubled up with laughter from the opening of the first act to the end of the opera’s final scene. As a comedy, it could easily stand comparison with Donizetti’s more famous offerings. So, why has it been overlooked for so long?

Well, actually, it has not been overlooked! Over the past few seasons there have been productions at the Téâtre de Genève, Operhaus Zürich, and the Teatro Real, Madrid, among others, but performed under the title “Viva La Mamma,” following a successful adaptation for Munich in 1969. There was also a production in 2022 at the Buxton International Festival. However, in that instance it was entitled “Viva La Diva.” There have also been performances under its original title, such as in Piacenza, fairly recently.

What has held the opera back is that there exists no definitive version. It may have started out as a one-act farce with spoken dialogue, but it was soon updated with sung recitatives and additional material inserted by conductors, taken from other operas, as well as arias added by the singers, which were not necessarily by Donizetti, and expanded into two acts. Performances are therefore likely to vary depending upon the choices made, and this is reflected in the reviews that have appeared over the years. Even Roger Parker, responsible for the Critical Edition, stated, “If you want to be authentic, then you must do your own thing – do something with this that has never been done before.” This is exactly what the director of this staging, Orpha Phelan, chose to do.

Phelan Creates a Pacy, Hilarious Reading

The basic plot is a very simple one, based around 19th century operatic conventions that ranked the position of the singers, which led to plenty of posturing and jealousy as they competed to protect their rightful status. The opera takes place in a theatre that is preparing for a production of “Romolo ed Ersilia.” The conductor and librettist, the director, and the singers are already at each other’s throats when the mother of the seconda donna turns up, determined to promote her daughter, and immediately starts to take control of the production. Mayhem ensues, and everything descends into chaos, which threatens to derail the production of the opera.

Phelan identified two interrelated problems with the work. Firstly, the characters are so badly behaved it is difficult to have sympathy for any of them. They are always bickering, arguing, and insulting each other, and the audience does not care about them. On top of this, nothing much actually happens; they rehearse a piece, stop, and then start arguing, and then repeat the process, stifling any momentum.

To fix the problems, Phelan made numerous changes, including to the role of the impresario, whom she turned into a likable character, so that the audience could identify with his predicament and delight when the show fails, leaving the performers to suffer the consequences.

Her focus was unambiguously centered on the comedy. Every scene, every action was played for laughs; no opportunity was missed. For example, when the director attempted to move the rehearsal to the main stage, the cast refused, which ended with the seconda donna’s mother, Agata, being wrapped in bubble wrap and forcibly dragged off the stage.

Changes were made to sharpen the libretto, with hilarious consequences. The tenor role, for example, was originally defined as the ‘German tenor’ simply because Italian audiences found Germans singing in Italian highly amusing. In this production, he was used for a whole series of gags based around the fact that he had turned up for the rehearsals believing he was performing the role of Captain Von Trapp in “The Sound of Music” and is confused by, among other things, the fact that there are no nuns. Humorous dance routines, imaginatively choreographed by Amy Share-Kissiov, were added and had the audience roaring with laughter as they performed suggestive routines, standing in a line gyrating their hips, dressed as stagehands.

Phelan was supported by the imaginative set and costume designs of Madeleine Boyd, whose sensitivity to the work and to Phelan’s vision played a significant part in its success. Phelan’s first act was set in a busy area inside a theatre with an office and rehearsal space, full of theatre paraphernalia. In the second act, the stage was transformed into a set for “Romolo ed Ersilia” with classical pillars on a slightly raised area with the cast in classical costumes, which had a slight hint of the absurd about them. Of course, the opportunity for a little fun was not ignored; a pediment from a temple, topped with a statue, is lowered from above to sit on the pillars but is accidentally upside down.

Excellent Cast Headed by a Fabulous Performance from Paolo Bordogna

Given the high-energy, fast-moving staging, it required a fully committed, switched-on cast that was able to react to any slight deviations in the plan, caused by some ad libbing from Paolo Bordogna in the role of Mamma Agata, who appeared happy to react to the audience or furnish his performance with a few extras! Fortunately, the entire cast proved more than up to the task and fell in with the managed mayhem.

To say that Bordogna, playing the role of the seconda donna’s mother, Donna Agata Scannaglli, was deliberately over the top would be an understatement. He entered the stage like a whirlwind ripping through a town, destroying everything and anyone that stood in his path; even the bickering between the cast was blown out of the water by his outrageous behavior. He whooped and hollered, interacted with the audience, and overreacted to the smallest provocation. His characterization of Mamma Agata was demanding, aggressive, and unreasonable, which he magnified to the extreme, but always with his eye fixed on the comedy. She cannot read music but demands to sing Pippetto’s role, who has walked out in disgust, and demands the prima donna sing a duet with her daughter. She listened to no one and confronted everyone. Bordogna exaggerated her physical actions to the point of absurdity that left everyone around Agata well and truly in the background. It would have been a disastrous interpretation had it not been for his natural facility for comedy. His performance was clearly not learnt in detail; it simply flowed from the dramatic situation in which he was operating, which created a frisson and energy that filled the stage. He is a natural buffo singer with a resonant, agile baritone, which he uses to capture the necessary feigned emotions and quick patter delivery replete with leaps and exaggerated tonal contrasts to heighten the effect.

Sharleen Joynt Shines as the Diva

While it might have been true that Mamma Agata dominated the stage, she was unable to detract from the performance of the prima donna, Daria Garbinati, played by soprano Sharleen Joynt. Playing up the bad behavior one has come to associate with a diva, she was almost as bad as Mamma Agata, refusing to sing with the inferior seconda donna, which, unsurprisingly, led to a feisty confrontation with Agata in which the sparks flew as both went for each other in a marvelously sung duet. Joynt has a beautiful, bright, agile voice, which she showcased in two arias in which her brilliant, sparkling coloratura impressed. Obviously, the better she sang, the more Agata raged.

Alberto Robert played the tenor, Guglielmo Antolstoinoff, who found himself in the wrong production and eventually leaves bewildered by their ideas on how to perform “The Sound of Music.” Mainly restricted to the occasional funny comment, in which he also attempts a song from the musical, he also sang an aria at the beginning of Act Two, in which his sweet lyricism caught the attention of the audience.

Daria’s husband, Procolo, played by tenor Giuseppe Toia, spent most of the evening singing the praises of and defending his wife. Although, after the original tenor departs to find a production of “The Sound of Music,” he took over his role. He produced an earnest, neatly sung performance.

Soprano Paola Leoci, cast as Agata’s daughter, Luigia Castragatti, always found herself in the shadow of her mother. Despite the limited opportunities offered by the role, Leoci managed to impress with her vocal beauty and excellent acting.

The rest of the cast was comprised of baritone Philip Kalmanovitch as the Impresario bullied throughout the performance by Mamma Agata; mezzo soprano Hannah Bennett as the unhappy Pippetto, who is replaced by Agata; baritone William Kyle in the role of the librettist, Cesare Salzaparaglia; baritone Matteo Loi as the conductor, Briscoma Strappaviscere, who showed off his voice to good effect with a well-sung aria; and bass Henry Grant Kerswell as the theatre director. Not only did they all produce fine performances, but they provided excellent support in the work’s numerous ensemble pieces.

Together with the musical director, Danila Grassi, Phelan selected music by Bernstein, Rossini, and other pieces by Donizetti, which they incorporated into the production in line with 19th century traditions. They also managed to track down the score of “Romolo ed Ersilia,” by the now largely forgotten composer Josef Mysliveček, and used part of its overture at the beginning of Act Two. The insertions sat neatly alongside Donizetti’s score in a sensitively arranged musical collage, for which Grassi produced a lively, energetic reading from the Wexford Festival Opera Orchestra, which zipped along at an engaging pace, successfully capturing the spirit of its easy-on-the-ear melodies.

At the final curtain, the cast and members of the production team were given an enthusiastic ovation by the audience. Everyone had a smile on their face. It was great fun!

The last opera I saw that had people laughing so much was Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale,” which also happened to be directed by Orpha Phelan.