Mixed Mascagni rarity is well served
Italian composer Pietro Mascagni never repeated the huge success of
Cavalleria Rusticana, his first opera written at age 26, but he had a jolly good try.
His other 15 rarely appear in major opera houses, but during the summer season smaller venues more often venture outside the standard repertoire, and so it is that Opera Holland Park, after producing three of Mascagni’s lesser-known works in recent years (L’amico Fritz, Zanetto,
Iris), are now staging this 1911 work set in medieval Europe and inspired by the Lady Godiva legend.
Here, though, rather than the wife of a ruler demonstrating against her husband’s onerous taxation policy, it is a king’s daughter, the titular heroine Isabeau, who is assigned the mythic act of riding naked on a white horse, a punishment from her resentful father after she rejects his chosen suitors.
The central romantic tragedy is set in motion when an honest young falconer, Folco, accidentally glimpses her on the ride of shame, thereby disobeying the king’s order that no one should look at her; he is thrown into jail, where she visits him and falls in love. The king’s scheming minister Cornelius, who persuades the king to bend his daughter to his will, then abruptly releases Folco to the mob justice of citizens, who put out his eyes, and the two lovers end united in death. With a text by Luigi Illica, who wrote librettos for Puccini’s masterpieces Bohème, Tosca, Butterfly, and Giordano’s wonderful Andrea Chénier, it’s a potent narrative.
But what of the music? Mascagni writes very well for the chorus, which acts as a uniform body of townspeople. In this production, directed by Martin Lloyd-evans, they are excellent, and though the intermezzo (accompanying the ride through town) does not have the punch of the famous one from Cavalleria Rusticana, it still has plenty of thunder, deploying bells extensively.
Sadly, Mascagni’s music lacks the orchestral subtlety and sustained brilliance of a contemporary like Puccini, but a first rate tenor can work wonders with the role of Folco, and here David Butt Philip does just that. His ringing tone and noble stage presence, along with the lovely singing of Anne Sophie Duprels as Isabeau, focus the performance, while there are well-judged contributions from Mikhail Svetlov (King) and George von Bergen (Cornelius), and bittersweet vignettes from Fiona Kim as Folco’s grandmother.
Lloyd-evans’s excellent staging emphasises the claustrophobic nature of a medieval town, with buildings moving during the ride to amplify the effect. And I loved the wonderful falcon puppet that Folco calls from the skies, and the three ever-present penitents, each mutilated in mouth, eyes or ear. Vibrant conducting by Francesco Cilluffo helps bring out the conflict between passion and bourgeois judgment at the heart of the work.
The opera itself may be a mixed bag, but Opera Holland Park’s production can hardly be faulted.