United Kingdom New Chamber Opera – Haydn, La vera costanza: Soloists, The Band of Devices / Steven Devine (conductor). New School, Oxford, 26.6.2024. (CR)

Manufacturing:
Director – Michael Burden

Forged:
Rosina – Aine Smith
Baroness Irene – Lara Marie Müller
Lisetta – Kate Semmens
Depend Errico – Joseph Doody
Marquis Ernesto – David Horton
Masino – Robert Forrest
Villotto – Thomas Niesser

The plot of Haydn’s La vera costanza (1779, however reconstructed in 1785) bears some similarities to the well-known story of affected person Griselda, set as an opera by numerous composers, wherein the advantage of a spouse is examined. However, in combining components of an eighteenth century ‘sentimental’ drama with opera buffa, the narrative contains numerous extra comical and sensational twists. Baroness Irene intends to place an finish to her nephew, Depend Errico’s love curiosity within the fishermaid Rosina, by attempting to attract her consideration to the hapless Villotto as an alternative. Though Errico and Rosina have already been married in secret, and regardless of the assessments to her constancy by the Baroness, Villotto and even Errico, who all plot to homicide her at one level or different owing to misunderstandings (wilful and unintended), advantage lastly triumphs as she stays the true fixed of the opera’s title. Comedian subplots contain the Baroness’s personal love curiosity within the youthful Marquis Ernesto, and Lisetta’s curiosity in Rosina’s brother Masino, ensuing within the ordinary net of conflicted intrigue and motivations which drive the narrative.

With considered cuts, and a full of life translation of the libretto by Simon Rees with fashionable idioms, Michael Burden’s manufacturing doesn’t impose any specific idea upon a situation which might properly come below the scrutiny and critique of latest feminist thought, however slightly lets the motion converse in its personal extra ironic and idiosyncratic phrases. Inside the context of what’s an basically chamber efficiency al fresco and in kind of within the spherical, with a minimal set, the solid are excellently engaged with the mood and tempo of the work in order that the drama could be very successfully carried by their appearing and choreography. That helps to make sense of the convoluted threads of the plot, and clear diction from the singers additionally permits the dialogue, with its sorts of humour, to be adopted simply, in arias in addition to recitatives.

Regardless of the trials which Rosina has to endure, Aine Smith is calmly expressive and transferring because the heroine: she tasks the pathos of Rosina’s scenario with out breaking into uneasy fury or volatility, even within the high-quality scene for her in Act II wherein Haydn alternates accompanied recitative and arioso with the assist of strings whose music anticipates the depth of the Seven Final Phrases, or could also be in contrast with the identical type of the gradual motion of the String Quartet Op.20 No.5. Capriciousness is slightly left to the undependable males. Though Errico receives a usually pressing and lyrical efficiency from Joseph Doody, there’s nonetheless the aria for the character wherein he regrets giving murderous orders to Villotto, and imagines himself as just like the widowed Orpheus, which begins as a lament however turns into, in essence, a rage aria. Thomas Niesser sings warmly however nimbly as Villotto, whose stupidity is usually commented upon within the libretto and is made a determine of enjoyable. When he declares his intention of becoming a member of the military to flee the awkward scenario he finds himself in between Rosina and Errico, the latter is prompted to imagine one thing of the identical jauntiness in an upbeat aria whose scenario carefully foreshadows Figaro’s celebrated ‘Non piu andrai’ with respect to Cherubino.

David Horton is a voluble Ernesto, even generally tetchy, together with his personal stake within the intrigue because the would-be husband of the Baroness, whereas Robert Forrest demonstrates cooler candour as Masino, Rosina’s brother, who opposes the plan for Villotto to pair off along with her. Lara Marie Müller sings with authority because the Baroness, persuasive however not strident; and in no way final and least is Kate Semmens – a stalwart of New Chamber Opera, and by pleasant coincidence, a Lisetta final yr in Paisiello’s La Frascatana (evaluation right here) – on characteristically zippy, spirited kind because the Baroness’s resourceful, quick-witted maid.

Animated and buoyant too are the Band of Devices, led from the harpsichord by Steven Devine. The one-to-a-part ensemble retains the music brisk and responsive, the strings usually able to tenderness and cordiality, the oboes including their very own quirks, be that sorrow and craving, or a trumpet-like boldness in Errico’s aforementioned bellicose aria. Above all, it’s Haydn’s wit and invention which come throughout on this opera, a major space of his output that’s given an all too rare airing right here, in contrast together with his instrumental and choral music.

Curtis Rogers