During the 1700s, one of the key forms in Italian music was the opera seria. The term denotes the more serious or noble style of opera, as opposed to the comical opera buffa. The form reached its greatest heights during the tail end of the Baroque musical era, and continued in use through the life of Mozart.
A few years ago, Opera Atelier in Toronto staged Mozart's last opera seria, entitled La Clemenza di Tito (that was before I began writing this blog). This month, the production was of one of Mozart's early operas, Lucio Silla, another opera seria. Perhaps it's not altogether surprising that the music of this early outing should point the way so often towards Tito. Both, after all, are opere serie and both are set in ancient Rome. What surprised me, though, in this early score was the number of anticipations of Mozart's later comic or semi-comic operas, including such diverse works as The Magic Flute and The Abduction From the Seraglio.
In the opera seria, the key musical form is the aria da capo -- a three-part solo in which the final section is a varied and elaborated reprise of the opening. Commonly the aria da capo retained the extended instrumental ritornello introduction, which recurred at key points through the aria. This was a classic stylistic feature of Baroque music. Meanwhile, the libretto carried the story in a direction perilously close to melodramatic -- and, not surprisingly, the result (in this performance) was a fair number of chuckles and giggles from the audience in what were supposed to be serious scenes.
As this performance of Lucio Silla showed quite plainly, the vocal fireworks of the arias were the whole point and purpose of the work. The dramatic scheme was frankly weak at the knees; the text on the whole not much better. The story is carried forward by the recitatives, but always comes to a dead halt when it's time for another aria. After all, the "Great Voices" each demanded a set of arias designed to show off all aspects of their talent. Indeed, Mozart (like all opera seria composers) was not expected to composer anything until he had met and conferred with the various singers!
Given that description, it's not surprising that the later Mozart aria which most often sprang to my mind during this performance was Martern aller Arten from The Abduction From the Seraglio. In that aria, the showy virtuosity of the opera seria was crossbred with the comical traditions of the opera buffa to stunning effect.
One of the curious features of this opera is the utter dominance of high voices. The six named roles include three sopranos, a castrato soprano, and two tenors. So the only altos and baritones or basses are in the chorus! And, in accordance with opera seria tradition, the chorus has only a limited role.
So, to Opera Atelier's staging. The co-artistic directors, Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lajeunesse-Zingg were invited by conductor Marc Minkowski to stage the opera for the Salzburg Festival and this production was later mounted as well at La Scala in Milan. The Toronto staging was not the same production, simply due to the much more modest size of the stage in the Elgin Theatre, Opera Atelier's Toronto home.
The score has been somewhat cut to suit the sensibilities of modern audiences. The marginal tenor role of Aufidius has vanished altogether, and the total length of the opera has been reduced by some 40-45 minutes. Even so, the performance with one intermission stretched to almost three hours. No getting around it, opera seria makes serious demands on the stamina of the audience as well as on the soloists!
Among the five lead singers, I want to comment first on the work of Inga Kalna, making her Opera Atelier debut in the role of Cinna. It's a male character, but in the original production in 1778 the part was sung by a woman. Kalna's firm voice has a slightly dark colour to it which absolutely suited the role, and also contrasted nicely with her three soprano colleagues. Her florid ornaments were absolutely crystal-clear, and thus very effective. I'm sure the Opera Atelier audience would be glad to hear her perform again.
The other four soloists are all Opera Atelier stalwarts. Peggy Kriha Dye sang with strong tone and a suitable dramatic edge as Cecilio (another male role, originally sung by a castrato).
Meghan Lindsay was very good as Giunia, Cecilio's lady love and the target of dictator Lucio Silla's amorous intentions. Her ornamentation was the most showy of the work, as you might expect from the leading female role, and was clearly and rapidly executed. Lindsay's role is the one that veers closest to Martern aller Arten, and there was no question in my mind that she could have shot straight into that infamous showstopper without missing a beat.
Mireille Asselin provided a certain degree of comic relief as Celia, sister of Lucio Silla, and love interest of Cinna. Whether by the intentions of the librettist and composer or not, she brought a nice touch of soubrette sassiness to this role, creating effective contrast in her scenes with Cinna and Giunia.
In the title role, we had tenor Krešimir Špicer, another veteran of numerous Opera Atelier productions. In modern terms, it's a tough role to bring off as the character's motivations hover somewhere on the verge of utter unreality. Špicer managed to keep Silla believable, while still respecting the genre conventions. In terms of singing, his emphatic, dramatic vocal style certainly suited the part. His best moment came in his final aria. It's a kind of aside to the audience, and that's just the way it was staged. Špicer came around the orchestra pit to the front of the house and addressed the audience very directly. In this aria, he gave his most subtle singing of the night, many passages delivered on a mere thread of head tone, and to great effect.
The lengthy ritornelli before a number of arias became the excuse for some low-key comic stage business, of a type Opera Atelier has successfully used in past productions. This was particularly true of those moments when Celia was onstage.
The artists of Atelier Ballet had not as much to do in this production as in some others, but the sword-fighting scene between the men of the ballet and Cecilio was a fascinating piece of choreography, a wonderful cross between a dance and a stage sword fight, and was both visually stunning and dramatically effective. Peggy Kriha Dye's interaction with the dancers in this scene was first-rate for precision and power alike.
In a rare departure from standard Opera Atelier practice, the chorus came on stage in white robes for the scenes of the Roman Senate to create a crowd of Senators. The singers of the chorus remained readily audible, and their presence on stage added dramatic point to these scenes.
Artistic Director Marshall Pynkoski made quite a point of the need to work within the conventions of the opera seria, rather than trying to run them over with more modern approaches. I agree. This production of Lucio Silla certainly made his point clear. Having said that, he failed to persuade me to like the opera seria form. The same few limited concepts and turns of phrase appear in the libretto, again and again. Of course, this is to give each singer a chance to have several spectacular showpiece arias. But I personally found it tedious and beyond repetitive. Also, Pynkoski asserted strongly that this opera was a "masterpiece". I disagree. It's polished, skillful, and impressive -- for a 16-year-old composer. But I heard nothing to convince me that Mozart had already arrived as a creative artist of the first rank. What I heard was a competent mastery of a traditional art form. There were a few pointers towards the more mature works to come, but that was all.
Opera Atelier has done splendid productions of several of the late, great "five" -- the operas of Mozart's maturity. While this staging of one of his earliest operatic works was certainly intriguing, I felt finally that it has remained largely unheard for very good reasons.
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