Search - Bohuslav Martinu, Riccardo Frizza, Elena Traversi :: Bohuslav Martinu: Mirandolina

Delightful Discovery: Martinu's Sparkling Goldoni Comedy

Nicholas A. Deutsch | New York, NY USA | 05/19/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Bohuslav Martinu's comic opera is adapted from a famous Italian play, Carlo Goldoni's "La Locandiera" (1753), generally known in English as "The Mistress of the Inn" or (like the opera) by the name of its title character. Martinu began composing the piece in the year of the play's bicentenary, 1953, fashioning his own Italian libretto from the original text, but the premiere didn't take place until 1959, shortly before the composer's death. Its (re)discovery dates from the 2002 Wexford Festival Opera production heard here (thanks to the BBC and Supraphon); its American premiere took place only recently (April, 2004), a musically excellent production by the Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater.
I was lucky enough to see that production, and this recording confims what a delightful, life-affirming piece "Mirandolina" is. The story is relatively simple, and focuses on the much-courted title character, an attractive young woman who keeps her various aristocratic suitors guessing until she finally picks the young waiter at her inn, Fabrizio. Much of the fun comes from her determined (and successful) efforts to make a misogynistic Cavaliere fall in love with her. Around this central trio circle a handful of other characters (no chorus) including two actresses pretending to be noblewomen.
Martinu's score, inventive, buoyant and full of high spirits, has an individual flavor of its own, but could be said to come from a distinguished lineage: there's something of Richard Strauss's neo-Classical comedies in it ("Ariadne auf Naxos,""Die Schweigsame Frau") with a touch of the orchestral glitter of Stravinsky ("Pulchinella") and Prokofiev - the lively Saltarello for orchestra before Act III recalls "Romeo & Juliet." There's not a trace, however, of Rossini's hard-edged, cynical farce-style - successfully revived in the 20th century by Nino Rota in his "Cappella di Paglia di Firenze" - nor of the nostalgia and melancholy of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's charming settings of Goldoni's Venetian comedies ("I quatro rusteghi,""Le donne curiose,""Il campiello"). What there most emphatically IS is the all-important "Czech factor": tuneful, warm-hearted but not sentimental, to my ears deriving spiritually from Smetana's lovely comic operas ("The Bartered Bride,""The Kiss,""The 2 Widows"). In "Mirandolina," this strain comes to the fore in Mirandolina's scenes with the faithful (and frustrated) Fabrizio, and provides some welcome human depth to the story, and some quieter moments amid the bustle of much of the rest of the score.
This in an excellent live recording of a fine performance (or rather parts of 3 of them). Very well played (National Philharmonic Orchestra of Belarus) and conducted (Riccardo Frizza), and with a talented young cast made up almost entirely of Italian singers - especially helpful in a work with short stretches of spoken dialogue - it obviously pleased and entertained the Wexford audience greatly and I hope will do the same for home listeners. (The occasional stage noises, laughter and applause for once don't detract from the performance.) Italian libretto and quatrolingual translations (English, German, French, Czech) provided. Very highly recommended."