OPERA REVIEW: A FLORENTINE TRAGEDY/GIANNI SCHICCHI

JOHN COULBOURN, Special to TorSun
26 APR 2012
R: 4.5/5

Pictured: Alan Held, Michael König, Gun-Brit Barkmin
in A Florentine Tragedy

On the surface, one of the few things that composers Alexander Zemlinsky and Giacomo Puccini had in common (beyond their shared profession, of course) was the fact that they both wrote one-act operas set in Florence — the former’s A FLORENTINE TRAGEDY, adapted from a play by Oscar Wilde, and the latter’s GIANNI SCHICCHI, based on an episode from Dante’s celebrated Inferno.

And while many might see that as a tenuous connection at best, for the Canadian Opera Company’s Director General Alexander Neef and diva-turned-director Catherine Malfitano, it has proven to be a golden thread that can bind the two operas into a single evening of often delightful entertainment — an evening that opened at the Four Seasons Centre Thursday.

It begins with A FLORENTINE TRAGEDY, ripped from its renaissance roots by designers Wilson Chin (sets) and Terese Wadden (costumes) and transplanted into the 1920s, where, truth to tell, it rests about as comfortably as a Vestal Virgin on a Vespa, particularly when it gets into discussions about spinning and weaving and the like, which were not common activities, if one recalls, for the flappers inhabiting this new time frame. But somehow, through sheer will and determination and the commitment of her three-member cast (bass baritone Alan Held, soprano Gun-Brit Barkmin and tenor Michael König) Malfitano makes it work, spinning out Wilde’s tale of infidelity and betrayal (adapted by librettist Max Meyerfeld) in often delicious, even stylish fashion and using the twist that ends the tale to score major dramatic points.

In tackling GIANNI SCHICCHI, Malfitano once again indulges a penchant for time travel, setting Puccini’s comedy about death, greed, betrayal and the ultimate triumph of young love down smack-bang in the middle of modern day Florence, where the aged Buoso Donati lays dying in the midst of his acquisitive relatives and his accumulated possessions, arranged by Chin in such a way as to suggest an Italian edition of TV’s Hoarders. When the clan Donati discovers that the newly deceased has left his fortune to the church, they quickly overcome their distaste for the upstart lawyer of title (played by Held in an impressive show of his acting and singing range) and enlist his help in circumventing the will and getting their hands on the estate. Encouraged by his lovely daughter Lauretta (soprano Simone Osborne in a deliciously understated turn) who longs to marry the dead man’s nephew (tenor René Barbera), Schicchi conspires with the next of kin and ultimately turns their greed to everyone’s advantage, including his own.

Under Malfitano’s tutelage, its not just the era that has been changed in Giovacchino Forzano’s libretto, but the comedic underpinnings as well, with an extensive cast (including mezzo Barbara Dever and bass Donato Di Stefano as well as Barkmin in her second role of the evening) all doing their level best to give the proceedings a sort of Fellini-does-slapstick feel that’s probably a lot more buffo than most opera lovers have come to expect. But aside from the fact that it makes Osborne’s task a lot more difficult when she slides into the over-the-top romanticism of Oh mio babbino caro like it was a warm bath — a task she accomplishes nonetheless with impressive ease — it works in its own glorious fashion. Finally, it all comes together as a memorable Florentine feast.