The latest gem is Zazà by Ruggero Leoncavallo, composer of Pagliacci. Why the opera has been so rarely performed is a mystery. True, there is not the climactic double murder of Leoncavallo’s earlier opera but the finale as the heroine faces up to her lover’s betrayal is just as shattering.
No soprano is more suited to the title role than Anne Sophie Duprels. She captures the fragility and bravado of Zazà, first seen in the dressing room of the provincial music hall surrounded by a supportive team including ex-lover Cascart (Richard Burkhard).
Suave Parisian businessman Milio (Joel Montero), on a visit to provincial Saint-Étienne, is a challenge for Zazà’s seductive powers but she then falls overwhelmingly in love with him. She follows him to Paris and secretly enters his apartment, only to discover he has a wife and young daughter. The daughter proves the breaking point for Zazà as she remembers her own fatherless childhood, brought up by her alcoholic mother.
When Zazà confronts Milio, his surface charm turns to vicious abuse. Director Marie Lambert and designer Alyson Cummins neatly combine the different scenes of Zazà’s chaotic dressing room, green room and provincial stage with Mark Jonathan’s lighting and Camille Assaf’s costumes. The City of London Sinfonia under conductor Peter Robinson brings out the lushness of the score and the Opera Holland Park Chorus supplies backstage bustle, while Louise Winter portrays dipsomaniac mother Anaide.
Leos Janácek’s unrequited affair with a 25-year-old married woman when he was in his 60s inspired him to compose the tragedy Kát’a Kabanová. The object of Janacek’s passion, Kamila Stösslová, unlike his stage heroine, was happy with her husband and bemused by the attention of the ageing composer. The Storm, a short story by Aleksandr Ostrovsky, supplied the plot to the opera.
Kát’a’s husband Tichon is a drunkard and Kát’a’s mother-in-law Kabanicha a sadistic bully. When Tichon is away on business, Kát’a’s half sister Varvara arranges a night-time tryst for Kát’a with Boris, a young neighbour.
The nights of love end on Tichon’s return when guilty Kát’a confesses her adultery to all before running off into the storm to throw herself into the river. Olivia Fuchs’s 2009 production makes a welcome return, with Julia Sporsén searing in the title role.
Designer Yannis Thavoris’s set of circular mesh fence beside a river bank represents the Kabanov house that cages Kát’a.
Anne Mason is the virulent mother-in-law, Nicky Spence is Tichon and Peter Hoare plays Boris, ruled by his repulsive uncle Dikój (Mikhail Svetlov). Investec Opera Holland Park’s excellent 2017 season runs to July 29.
VERDICT: 4/5
Leoncavallo’s Zazà nad Janácek’s Kát’a Kabanová by Opera Holland Park, London W8 (Tickets: 0300 999 1000/ operahollandpark.com; £53-£77)
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