Like almost all of his musical contemporaries, Salieri has remained so much in the shadow of Mozart, that it’s easy to forget how precocious he also was in composition. La locandiera (1773) is his ninth opera, composed when he was 23 and the year before he was appointed director of Italian opera at the Habsburg court in Vienna. It is an adaptation of Goldoni’s famous play in which the eponymous female innkeeper, Mirandolina, attracts the attentions of three noblemen, inciting the jealousy of her honest but simple servant Fabrizio, whom her father wanted her to marry. In a manner which pre-empts The Marriage of Figaro, as a member of a lower social class, she uses her wiles and charms to outwit those aristocratic guests, while also stringing Fabrizio along. For all that there is a certain radicalism in its satirical attitude towards the aristocracy and in promoting the intelligence and agency of its central female character, traditional hierarchies are restored at the end when Mirandolina is reconciled to marrying the lowly, but dependable Fabrizio, rather than any of the titled characters.
Set in the 1920s with the Art Deco interior of Mirandolina’s inn, Jeremy Gray’s production evokes something of the rarefied world of a story by Evelyn Waugh or Antony Powell. But it remains more purely slapstick or genially comic like Goldoni’s play – perhaps a touch of P.G. Wodehouse with respect to its sending up of the self-regarding, pleasure-seeking upper-class figures – and doesn’t play around with gender or sexuality by delving into the psychological movements of that era. More might have been made of the Baron’s (Cavaliere in the Italian original) self-confessed aversion to women that Mirandolina mischievously seeks to overcome – is he gay for example?
Nevertheless, there is much vivacity and jesting along the way, largely faithful to the original scenario. But Fabrizio also makes an amusing reference to ‘Se vuol ballere’, a threat by his counterpart, Figaro, to his master in Mozart’s operatic masterpiece, in jealous fury at the point that Mirandolina entertains her other suitors, hinting at a certain rebelliousness. Mozart’s ironic use of the courtly minuet form in that aria also works well musically here in pre-empting the similar stately triple-time meter of the climax of the ensemble finale which follows that scene in Act One. That finale, like a good few numbers in this opera, demonstrates Salieri’s capability for crafting lively, memorable music which illustrates and maintains the libretto’s repartee (in the nippy rhymes of Gray and Jeremy French’s translation, as much as the Italian).
The cast are stirred with equal enthusiasm and ebullience, perhaps even too much so as Acts Two and Three tend towards a hefty, overloud declamation – too much for the small theatre at Westonbirt School at any rate – missing the more easy-going temper of this 18th century comedy. It should be more a battle of tongues and wits rather than an out-and-out slagging match. Samuel Pantcheff is best at keeping his cool in his eloquent account of the jealous servant. Although Siân Dicker undeniably holds her own as Mirandola, her hard, firm vocal edge comes at the expense of more subtle subterfuge and winning coquetry. Likewise with Rosalind Dobson as the other servant, Lena – paired off at the end with Fabrizio’s unseen brother – who is otherwise ardent and affectionate. Osian Wyn Bowen is a guarded Baron in character, if snappy in musical delivery later on, as Mirandolina seeks to undermine his defences. David Horton and Aidan Edwards parade themselves as his aristocratic rivals with a certain self-deprecation.
The Orchestra of Bampton Classical Opera under Andrew Griffiths’s direction capture the opera’s levity and charm with a frequently elegant turn of phrase and vibrant tempo in a reduced scoring, comparing favourably with the more effortful 1989 recording with Fabio Luisi no less. This is a creditable addition to Bampton Classical Opera’s growing repertoire of Salieri’s works which it has made known to the public.
