Mozart, ‘La Finta Giardiniera’(K.196): Soloists, English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner (Conductor), Royal Opera House Covent Garden, 04.10.2006 (GD)

 

 

Initially it comes as a surprise to learn that the composer of ‘Le nozze di Figaro’ had a distinct preference for composing what he called ‘heroic’ opera (opera seria) over opera buffa. We first learn of this preference from  the copious comments by the eighteen year old composer made in letters to his father at the time of  ‘La finta’s’ delayed premiere in Munich in January 1775. But upon closer examination we discover, in Mozart’s operatic legacy, an increasing slippage, (breakdown) of distinctions between ‘seria’ and ‘buffa’. Masterpieces like ‘Le nozze’, or ‘Cosi’, although nominally seen as opera buffa are full of scenes of the highest seriousness. Slvoj Zizek has claimed that he knows of no opera more serious than ‘Cosi fan tutte’. We can be forgiven for imagining that this cross-over of the serious and the comic is something modern audiences would understand more completely. But that would be a mistake. The young Mozart was certainly fascinated with stylistic and sexual ambiguity, but so were the Munich audience of 1775, so much so that the character formation of (mezzo carattere), meaning operatic characters as both serious and comic, or half-and-half , from commedia dell’arte, was fully expected. And Mozart did not disappoint, adding to the great success of the first run of performances, later transcribed into German.

 

The libretto of ‘La finta’ is certainly influenced by commedia dell’arte, but it is also completely idiomatic to its eighteenth century context of sentimentality and sensibility. Here the ‘sentimental’ means more an operatic characterization of heightened or exaggerated emotion. Also the structure of the plot can seem to us over complex; Nardo is in love with Serpetta who is in love with Podesta who is in love with Sandrina who is in love with Belfiore who is in love with Arminda who used to be in love with Ramiro, and so on. Indeed the complex polyphony of love, jealousy, deceit, malice, often spills over into madness; of the plot and of the characters. This complex drama of desire develops from the central characters (if they can be so called?) of Violente, who is working as a gardener under the name of Sandrina to escape her lover Count Belfiore, who some months before stabbed her in a fit of jealous rage and left her for dead. This is complicated by her employer Don Anchise ( the Podesta-mayor of  Lagonero), who is greatly attracted to Sandrina, but who in turn, is being seduced by his servant Serpetta, who would like to marry him herself. Also Sandrina’s servant Roberto (also disguised as a gardener) is hoplessly in love with Serpetta. Love here, as in the later Cosi, is not the blissful panacea of resolution and marital harmony but the central problem. Rather than triumphantly defeating all, love is itself, through its own paradoxes, contortions, easily defeated. The unpredictable ‘les femmes machines’ (applying to both men and women) sets off a vertigo of emotions,  desires which ineluctably lead to jealousy, pain, frustration, madness and death.

Overall this was one of the finest Mozart operatic productions I have experienced in recent years, only occasionally let down by Herbert Murauer’s slightly drab sets (minimalist gardening accoutrements offset with indeterminate quasi-Arcadian backdrop), and some vocal disappointments (especially Sophie Koch’s ‘Ramiro’ which was well characterized as a soprano alternative to Mozart’s castrato part but spoilt by at times appalling Italian diction). But the real ‘star’ tonight was the magnificent direction and pacing of every nuance by John Eliot Gardiner and his superb English Baroque Soloists. Gardiner gave us the full Munich (Italian) version of which a copy of Mozart’s original (lost) score used at the Munich premiere was recently discovered just outside Prague, and of which Gardiner gained permission to study and annotate.

From the galante three-part Italian sinfonia overture Gardiner and the orchestra set the wonderfully buoyant, diverse tone of the whole opera. With Gardiner one experienced a kind of pre-figured compendium of Mozart’s development as an operatic master. All the way through one could hear (see) clearly prefigurations of ‘Idomeneo’, ‘Le nozze’, ‘Cosi’, ‘Don Giovanni’ and even ‘Die Zauberflote’. No. 13 Arminda’s ‘Vorrei punirti’, a veritable ‘aria di furrore’in A minor, foreshadows Electra in ‘Idomeneo’, and the ‘Queen of the Night’ in Die Zauberflote. Camilla Tilling’s Arminda (Niece of the Podesta, and promised bride to the would be murderer Count Belfiore… sung well tonight by Robert Murray, who replaced the scheduled Nicholas Watts) was brilliantly provocative, combining the comic and the serious with consummate vocal skill and acting.

Especial praise must also go to Genia Kuhmeier’s Sandrina (Violante). Sandrina (as two characters, or one character split?) becomes the model of the ‘mezzo carattere’, oscillating between two styles. Her first ‘simple girl’ aria (No. 4, ‘Noi donne poverine’) in it’s graceful serenity, contrasts well with No. 11 ‘Geme la tortorella’ her long elegiac cavatina, revealing herself now as Violante. Kuhmeier’s sheer vocal range truly revealed itself in her great solo scenes, Nos. 21 and 22, immediately preceding the finale of the second act where she encompasses both her character designations; the imperiously enraged Violante also nostalgic for her ‘donne poverine’ role.

Kurt Streit’s Podesta role (mostly buffo) was well intoned in his first extended aria (No. 3 ‘Dentro il mio petto’) where Mozart brilliantly incorporates musical allegory, especially in the concertante woodwind colourations, to inflect the different moods summoned in the vocal part. Serpetta, sung brilliantly by Patrizia Biccire, and Nardo, Sandrina’s servant, finely sung by Christopher Maltman, portray the pair of servants whose story unfolds in parallel to that of the principal (and noble) characters. Serpetta is the early archetype of the cunning impertinent maidservant, jealous of Sandrina who is supplanting her in the affections of the Podesta. Nardo who pursues her with ardent passion is resisted (sometimes with mock cruelty) by Serpetta. Their first appearance in a sustained double cavatina first sung by Serpetta (No 9. ‘Un marito, oh Dio, vorrei), and Nardo (9b ‘Un marito Dio, vorresti) was delivered in splendid, contrasting, vocal accord, with perfect balance between vocal and orchestral nuance.

The stage direction of Annika Haller was for the most part quite effective; as was the lighting of Reinhard Traub. Costume sequence, in line with the general minimalist designs, was a variation on different dress-styles of the late twentieth century, mostly casual, occasionally stylized, with a hint of sensual camp, as with ever compelling Arminda of Camilla Tilling. One quite simple (even crude) lighting idea worked very well. Arminda, the Podesta’s niece, came to Lagonero to meet the disastrous Count Belfiore with a view to marriage. She also came to avoid her lover Ramiro (soprano) whom she jilted just before the opera began. But she is unaware that Ramiro has also chosen Lagonero as ideal spot in which to recover from her bad treatment. Ramiro (Sophie Koch) acts as a kind of appalled observer of all the entangled shenanigans towards the end of the opera, he also acts with a view to uncover the truth regarding Belfiore’s culpability. In a night scene of indistinguishable copulating bodies he observes them all with a spotlight. But the momentary light shed on the sexual mayhem does nothing really to reconcile, or bring about understanding anymore. The revealing spotlight gaze only serves to confuse, madden and frustrate all the more.

 

Sometimes the stage direction was a little too animated; the big ensemble pieces at the end of the opera need a little more constraint and unity. Conductor and orchestra perfectly realised the so called ‘ombra-scena’, the inflection of a dark tone beneath the surface farce, which Mozart introduces increasingly towards the end of the opera; where reconciliation, restored harmony and forgiveness are indeed an illusion. The libretto, by one Pasquale Anfossi has long been considered ‘feeble’,’ stereotyped, ‘incompetent’, ‘epigonic nonsense’ (to use the words of the late William Mann). And it is not until the great Da Ponte operas that Mozart finds a librettist to equal his own genius. In this respect John Eliot Gardiner was quite right in shortening some of the long and repetitive ‘secco’ recitatives without losing any sense of the plots unfolding. Nevertheless, tonight’s performance demonstrated that flawed as ‘La finta’s’ libretto is, it can be projected with a drama and conviction both in its own right, and in terms of presenting us with a fascinating prefiguration of the later and greater operas.

 

 

 

Geoff Diggines