DAVID MELLOR
Margot La Rouge/Le Villi
Opera Holland Park, London Until August 6 HHHHH
Another first-class season for Opera Holland Park comes to an intriguing end with problematic rarities by two well known composers, Delius and Puccini, that really flourish in these skilful Opera Holland Park stagings.
Delius’s Margot La Rouge is a squib, but by no means a damp one. How could it be, when in the space of 30 minutes we are entertained by a troupe of prostitutes and shocked by two vividly depicted murders? First the stabbing of
Sergeant Thibault (Samuel Sakker), who recognises Margot as a former girlfriend, by the pimp known as L’Artiste (Paul Carey Jones). Who then gets his throat colourfully cut by Margot herself (Anne Sophie Duprels).
The music is immediately recognisable as good quality Delius, but the piece only got its first staged performance in 1983. It was obviously a rush job by Delius, but the drama is well depicted, because a bar filled with prostitutes wasn’t an unfamiliar locale for the young Delius, who died a miserable death from the syphilis presumably contracted in one of them.
But the triumph of the evening – and it really was – is the two-act version of Puccini’s first opera, Le Villi, based on the same story as the ballet Giselle.
The mature Puccini was a control freak, taking an interest in every part of the libretto as well as, of course, the music. Here he just took an off-the-shelf job but somehow made something of a pretty limited story of a betrayed woman (Duprels again) who dies of a broken heart leaving her repentant lover (Peter Auty giving his all and, like Duprels, in magnificent voice) to come back to get a rather different reception than he expected.
With excellent back-up from Stephen Gadd and first-class conducting from Wexford’s hugely promising Francesco Cilluffo, this show packs a real punch, and exerts a strong grip throughout. I don’t have time for the reasons why this opera has been so neglected, but on this evidence, that neglect is ill-deserved.
This is a fascinating glimpse of early Puccini on the threshold of a huge career, showing not only what a fine composer he is of opera, but also of orchestral music.
Truly not to be missed.