Page 215 - Guildhall Coverage Book 2020-21

Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di Susanna (Susanna’s secret) was premiered in 1909 and is a
typical bedroom farce. Countess Susanna’s secret is a simple one (spoiler alert) and she just
wants to smoke, something her husband, Count Gil, has forbidden her from doing. (Medcalf
shows this by turning Gil into a puppetmaster briefly at one point). Gil is convinced by his
own jealousy that Susanna has a lover who is a smoker who she sees when he is not at home.
The bedroom looked like the type you would find in a plush hotel and the cast – as
throughout the triple bill – were in contemporary clothes (apparently costumes were bought
online). Wolf-Ferrari’s score is vivacious in an operetta-like way though there are the
occasional overwrought passages for Susanna and Gil. It was played with great charm by the
socially distanced young musicians spread out in front of the stage.

My only tiny criticism is that the overhead shots of Susanna as she lay on her bed were
slightly voyeuristic and this was something that would be repeated in the other two operas.
On the plus side I enjoyed the updating to have Susanna smoke marijuana and it made sense
of lines like ‘its subtle vapour … lulls me into a dream’. There was a happy ending with
Susanna and Gil reconciled smoking their joints and under the covers of their (separated)
beds just like ‘Old Hollywood’ demanded of married couples! As the suspicious Gil, Tom
Mole used a mature-sounding and well-focused baritone voice impressively; Olivia Boen was
a pert and engaging Susanna, who seemed to relish her long drags on her ‘cigarette’; and
Brenton Spiteri busied himself about as the mute servant, Sante. As throughout most of this
triple bill the staging was clever and energetic and the choreography – helping to keep
characters out of touching distance – was sublime.

Mascagni was basically a one-hit wonder and never really replicated the success of his
1890 Cavalleria rusticana and by 1896 his thoughts turned to creating another one-act opera
that could be paired with it, though it has been Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci which proved more
popular down the intervening years. Over the course of 50 minutes a couple’s romance –
somewhat implausibly – flares up and peters out. It is Brief Encounter at its briefest!
A former courtesan, Silvia, falls instantly in love with a roving minstrel, Zanetto, who arrives
at her hotel and who she recognises as the young man she had once seen and liked the look
of. There is an instant mutual attraction, but Silvia must conceal who she is and her past life
from him, and their relationship is doomed. In the end Silvia gives the youth up to continue
his iterant life, admitting to Zanetto – also perhaps trying to convince herself – ‘I love you,
like a child I want to save’. Silvia hands him a white rose and sings ‘By the time it withers
you’ll have forgotten me.’

The plot is extraordinarily thin, but it is great that the young singers are given some
melodramatic verismo to sing, rather than more Mozart which is all they sometimes seem to
perform. This extended to Wheeler and his orchestra who empathised the wistful passion in
Mascagni’s music. There is no overture and Mascagni opens the work with a delightful, a
cappella, chorus. There are no formal arias and the closest Silvia comes to one is ‘Senti,
bambrino’ (‘Hear me, my boy’) where Mascagni gives her music which sounds as if it was
left over from Cavalleria rusticana. Until I read that Zanetto was a trouser role I thought the
Guildhall School had gone in for some gender blind casting to put a new twist on the original
plot! With her lank hair Jessica Ouston was a very convincing guitar-strumming, slightly
androgenous, Goth and she used her plangent mezzo-soprano very intelligently. Ella de
Jongh’s voice had a genuine dramatic edge but occasionally was a touch shrill, though hers
was also a credible portrayal of an emotionally confused character who ends up totally
distraught.

Donizetti’s Rita (otherwise Two Men and a Woman) was completed in 1841 but never
performed in the composer’s lifetime and was premiered posthumously in 1860. It is a story