Thrilling operas merge seamlessly in play within a play

Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni and Pagliacci by Ruggiero Leoncavello
NBR New Zealand Opera
St James Theatre, Wellington
August 27-30

The Aotea Centre, Auckland
September 15–25

Sex and death are always a good basis for an opera. So when you can double the amount of sex and death it should be a sure-fire hit. This latest pairing of Cav and Pag will be just that.

Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci have a lot going for them. They have good clear stories, gutsy and dramatic characters, thrilling music and at less than an hour and a half for each of them it is an easily watchable duo.

Both written in the 1890s and are watershed operas in that they are among the first Italian operas that deal with ordinary folk without any magic potions or disguised princes. They are forerunners of the realist Italian films of 50 years later.

This production of Cav and Pag will be remembered for its inventive linking of the two works. When the curtain goes up for the second opera, Pagliacci, we find we are witnessing the same scene that closed Cavalleria Rusticana.

Anna Pierard is a lascivious Lola, her red hair a signal of danger reinforced in the opening moments as the cheating Turiddu sings of her “red and beguiling lips” and her “staining crimson blood.”

She is a suitable contrast to the poor Santuzza (Anna Shafajinskia), the excommunicated and despised girlfriend who is pregnant with Turiddu’s child.

Pierard shows off a beguiling and rich voice full of sensuous vitality while Anna Shafajinskia’s voice plumbs the depths of emotional despair.

Peter Autry’s Turiddu and Marcin Bronikowski’s hotblooded Alfio give crisp and fierce performances, while Wendy Doyle as Lucia is a suitable distant and distraught mother of Turiddu.

Alfio is a strong Mafioso role, most notably in the final scene where the murder of Turiddu is shown as a Mafia hit rather than a personal fight to the death.

The town square setting of the Easter celebrations, which are central to the opera, is elegantly staged with red crosses propped against the Sicilian volcanic outcrop, a suitable metaphor for death and sacrifice.

Traditionally, Pagliacci opens with Tonio coming on stage to announce the true story about to be told but in this outstanding production he manages to connect the two stories by being on stage with the mayhem, which has just resulted with the murder of Turiddu. The chaos and confusion continues on until the final deaths of Nedda and Silvio.

This clever way of creating a play within the play, which itself contains a play, allows the characters to create various levels of disguise and role-playing, which is both comical and tragic.

Elizabeth Futral gives a remarkable performance as the Goth-like Nedda and then as a sexy Columbine with a voice filled with colour and feeling.

Her four admirers, all competing for her affection in their own misguided ways, are all superbly realised; Warwick Fyfe as the pathetic Tonio, Rafael Rojas as Canio the brutal husband, Andrew Glover as Beppe and Marcin Bronikowski as her true love, Silvio.