Page 214 - Guildhall Coverage Book 2020-21

Well, how enjoyable this all was and perhaps something of a hidden gem as I would be
interested in how many knew this live stream was available and watched as it happened (the
only way to see a performance). Conductor Dominic Wheeler in an introduction explained
that it was the Guildhall School’s first ever opera production like this and how what we
would see was ‘completely live [and] unedited … with all the excitement and all the risks that
entails’ to give the students ‘the chance to perform live in a socially distanced Covid-safe
configuration’. Wheeler explained how ‘Our director Stephen Medcalf then devised – what
we affectionately called – our kabuki [theatre] system for portraying moments of human
contact.’ Asked in a Q&A (available on the GSMD website) Medcalf explains his
ideas/inspirations as ‘Fantasies and dreams – very close together in many ways – tie together
the three operas. What set us off was the Mascagni because there are so many dreams within
this centrepiece. Sylvia seems to dream of this young man that she may have glanced at once
in a street, who’s remembered her and who, somewhere in Florence, is also dreaming of that
moment. Then of course this dream seems to come true. I suppose that we’ve expanded that
theme of dreams to the other two operas. The set for all three works is, in essence, a bed, and
the bed is torn in half – which is obviously emblematic of dreams and relationships that go
wrong.’

Though not their original settings, Florence now links all three of the operas and there is
ingenious use of black and white filmed montages which are dreamily projected at the rear of
the stage to set the scene for each of them. These are in the style of some of the great masters
of post-war Italian cinema, think Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti, Vittorio De
Sica, Federico Fellini, and others.