Royal Opera House: Linbury Studio
15th September 2006
Have to say, this was a bit of a mess. I do know the plot of La finta giardiniera now because the other Primi Divi explained it to me, but I didn’t know when I walked out of that studio. I wouldn’t have minded, but this event is supposed to be aimed at people who are new to opera, and I was actually more confused when I left than I was to start with. Fit Crit was trying to tell me the plot before it started, but the others all shut him up. They wanted me to have the full perspective of total ignorance. And I did, and I didn’t enjoy it.
First up was Michael Enscott. Barry said this was good news, as he’d done a very good talk on some other Mozart opera. Wasn’t hugely impressed that he couldn’t pronounce the title, but then I can’t really either. He started to explain the plot, I got confused. Thought at the time it was just me being thick but still felt they could have dumbed it down a bit more for the beginners it was aimed at without actually getting insulting. He said he didn’t know the opera before he was asked to give the talk, that surprised me a bit considering he’s interested in Mozart. All the Primi Divi are interested in Mozart and because of that they’ve not only listened to recordings but most of them have seen at least one production. I did like the bits of music he played – but I wish a bit more of it had been from La finta giardiniera.
Sir John Eliot Gardiner the conductor was the next person to speak. He hadn’t known the opera either until he was asked to conduct it. And he hadn’t seen it – even though he’d just been in Salzburg, where Barry says there’s a production. Gardiner seemed a bit shaky on the plot too and he called the characters by different names – some of them do have fake names, apparently, and Vixen says that some productions call them by their names (Belfiore, Anchise) and some by their titles (Count, Mayor), but I think they might have been consistent about that and agreed which names they were going to use . He talked a lot about the music, which was probably interesting, but he used too many words I didn’t understand. Tried to remember them all so I could ask Primi Divi’s music graduate what they meant afterwards, but there were just too many of them.
Gardiner was then joined by Christopher Cook, a radio presenter who was introducing the whole thing (don’t think he was that sure of the plot either), David Syrus (Head of Music at the ROH) and Anna Leese (wasn’t she in Neighbours?) who was covering Arminda. They were all sitting in the audience which was nice. They had a round table discussion. Didn’t really understand half of it because it was so technical, but it probably would be difficult for music professionals to have a realistic conversation and dumb themselves down as they did it. Christopher Cook was good at encouraging people to speak. Anna Leese didn’t say much except how she liked Arminda, but wanted to sing Sandrina. Probably a smart move to say it in front of all those music experts.
The singing at the end was the best. David Syrus accompanied Anna Leese and another understudy, Ana James (Serpetta) on the piano while they sang their first arias. Syrus was good, he was quite technical but he showed what he meant by playing it on the piano and explaining some of the difficult stuff. Wish he’d done the whole talk. Anna Leese sang Arminda’s aria well and made it really funny. I’ve heard that opera singers can’t act but can’t say I’ve noticed it much. Ana James wasn’t so good. She has a nice voice and she was trying to make it funny too but she didn’t seem to know the music that well. I know she’s only an understudy, but this insight event was a performance, and she should have been better prepared. Just my opinion.
At the end they did questions. The audience seemed to know a lot about La finta giardiniera, but I probably wasn’t the only beginner. I wasn’t the only confused person either – some of the Primi Divi got confused and they knew most of it to start with. The people answering the questions didn’t seem to know quite so much as the audience. They couldn’t say much about the German version of the opera (they couldn’t even pronounce it, apparently), and no-one knew why La finta giardiniera had been chosen as a production for Mozart Year. Just don’t feel I’ve got any insights into anything much, really.
Madam Caterpillar
primi-divi at hotmail.co.uk