Wolf-Ferrari’s short opera is perfect for a one-night coupling, as Opera Holland Park have proved both this year, with Pagliacci (review), and, in 2019, with Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta (review).
Susanna’s secret? As you can see from the disc cover, she smokes. The plot? Gil (baritone Omar Montanari) returns home and smells tobacco. It is of course inconceivable that it could be his wife, Countess Susanna (Lidia Fridman), who is the miscreant, so instead he suspects that his wife has a lover. When he confronts her, Susanna admits that she has a secret, but wil not tell him what it is. Left alone, she takes out a cigarette from a hidden packet smokes it together with the servant. Hence the secret. When Gil returns she hides the cigarette in her hand. Gil gets burned while trying to take her hand. With this revelation, forgiveness reigns as it so often does in opera, and they live happily ever after, smoking blissfully together..
The third part, the servant, but it is a silent one, shown to great advantage in Kensington but obviously superfluous here. But what is impressive about this performance is Felix Krieger’s handling of the orchestra (the Orchestra of the Berlin Opera Group) and how together they are ultra-responsive to the quickly-changing score. Wolf-Ferrari’s orchestration is superb, and heard like this one cannot but listen in admiration.
This is a live performance from Deutschland Culture, and how it shows in the spontaneity from all. The Berlin Opera Group was founded in 2013 and has given a string of Berlin premieres (including Donizetti’s Deux Hommes et une Femme).
The opera requires pinpoint playing from the orchestra, not least in the opening Sinfonia, and so it is here:
The opera is notable for featuring a part for drawing-room piano, which in some productions is heard as if offstage, but which here is remarkably present. Montenari is beautifully expressive and involved above it, anyway “Evetiam che un domestico!”):
He excels in “Il dolce idilio,” too; fascinating how Wolf-Ferrari seems to reference the earlier-music cadences (hints at in teh piano earlier). Lidia Fridman is equally expressive. Her voice is strong ; some might find it too much so, but to me it feels right:
Pacing and dramatic.structiure is all, as much in comic opera as in opera seria. Listen to how Krieger give the ending of “Ah, scellerata! Du tua madre” huge emphasis, contrasting it with the lovely “Interlude” with its liquid, expressive clarinet solo:
… and also how he shades the moment of the orchestra in the spotlight so tenderly in this:
Lidia Fridman (Susanna) comes into her own with her “Via! Così non mi lasciate!”:
Beyond doubt, Fridman’s first moment is a transfixing “ Oh gioia la lube leggera”:
Krieger’s handling of the end of the opera is perfect.
The disc is available at Amazon here. Streaming below.
