A NATIONAL PREMIERE – 27th of October 2009 – Opera rara
A Performance dedicated to the Bicentenary Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
The Ballet and Opera Experimental Studio „Ludovic Spiess” (BOES) presented the national premiere “La Canterina”, an opera buffa composed by Joseph Haydn. We wished to mark hereby 200 years since the composer’s passing away, just like a great number of opera theaters and concert institutions worldwide have done. The event took place on Tuesday, the 27th of October 2009, at 6:30 p.m., in the Yellow Foyer of the National Opera House in Bucharest (NOB).
The performance was directed by Traian Savinescu, who is currently the art director with the „Puck” Animation Theater in Cluj-Napoca, while the scenography was conceived by Viorica Petrovici, and the musical arrangement belongs to piano player Lidia Butnariu.
The cast of the performance includes NOB soloists and collaborators, who will embody several complex, charming characters, typical for the theater world of all times: Valentin Racoveanu (Don Pelagio), Simonida Lutescu (Gasparina), Antonela Barnat (Apollonia), CRISTINA MARTA SANDU (Don Ettore). Figurants: Sorin Dobrin, Lucia Elvira Butnariu.
The music of this opera, composed by Joseph Haydn in 1766 for prince Esterhazy, is extremely fluent, radiating, both in its arias and in its recitatives, a particular sense of dynamism and of good humor, imposing throughout the performance a way of acting fool of energy.
The show is performed in Romanian.
Translation and adaptation of the libretto: Traian Savinescu
Technical direction: Gabriela Craus
Lightning: Cornel Vladu
Synopsis
A young woman (Gasparina) and a more experienced one (Apollonia), who is Gasparin’s false mother, are under the protection of a venerable singing master (Don Pelagio); he is overwhelmed with admiration for the young woman aspiring to the glory of singing. Don Ettore, another fan of Gasparina, also tries to rouse the interest of the beautiful and whimsical to be “diva”.
Among the pathetic musical dedications, doubled by the conventional artistic pieces of advice of Professor Don Pelagio, and the juvenile sighs, doubled by Don Ettore’s tempting gifts, the sharp Gasparina will turn the balance of favors towards the latter, leaving nevertheless the door ajar for the older “maestro”. Apollonia’s advice was taken by the young “diva”, who finally harvests the benefits of love and material accomplishment.
Suppressed anger, love declarations full of pathos, desperate sighs and pretended faints – the whole range of tricks played in the Commedia dell’Arte (of which this opera was inspired) point to the characteristics of a genuine “opera buffa”.
LA CANTERINA – the opera, as well as “la canterina” – the charming and deceiving Gasparina prevail just like, according to the audience’s secret wish, the whims of love will overcome, at any age, everyday life’s boredom.
The Director’s Note
The choice of the opera “LA CANTERINA” is supported by several noteworthy arguments, besides the purely sentimental one. Due to the opportunity this musical gem offers a lab experiment, as close as possible to the theatrical experiment, our option for “theater in theater” came almost naturally, gradating and developing the topic of the opera, and offering the soloists a wide range of performing possibilities.
The musical dynamics of the opera triggers special performing dynamics, a constant verve in the actors’ play, full of energy throughout the performance. We tried to explore to the utmost the above mentioned possibilities, in the recitative moments, “secco” or “accompagnato”, valuing them by the creation of several “lazzi” in the spirit of the plot, in order to shake it off the inherent conventionalism of the epoch.
We enriched the characters by inventing biographies to sustain them, withdrawing them thus significantly from the fixity of the “masks” in the Commedia dell’Arte. Speaking about biographies, it would be worth mentioning our wish to pay tribute discretely to the composer, who was the first to sign a score explicitly dedicated to the puppet theater, by the time Hayden was composing at the court of Count Eszterházy.
In the same spirit of making experiments, the scenography – signed by Viorica Petrovici, whom I particularly appreciate – is valued in the performance by means of costumes, décor and properties, whose multifunction use is meant to give color and flavor to the performance, in the same comic note.
The joy of exploring and the satisfaction of revelation, in the very processes of creation and performance, may weigh sometimes, at the level of the accumulated experience, infinitely more than the joy and satisfaction of the premiere itself. Thus, the idea of EXPERIMENTAL STUDIO, in which the material investment is not decisive (though it does matter), and in which the investments in the human resource and time are very important, the idea of “experimental studio” is worth being supported and promoted generously.
Traian Savinescu
The Scenographer’s Note
To me, each performance is a challenge, no matter how long it is. The opera buffa “LA CANTERINA” by Haydn is so much more challenging, owing to its performing possibilities in front of an audience that is different from the usual opera audience. The visibility is different in a classical auditorium, as compared to the stage of the Opera Experimental Studio. The distance between the singers and the audience, almost non-existent, turns the detail into a whole. My particular concern with this performance was to make the audience notice things otherwise invisible. My excellent collaboration with the director Traian Savinescu helped me identify the most proper solutions, in order to develop the comic by the scenographer’s specific means: costumes as well as décor and environmental elements.
Viorica Petrovici
LIDIA BUTNARIU
Piano player LIDIA BUTNARIU graduated the National Music University in Bucharest, the Musical Performance Faculty – Piano Division. She studied with Masters Dan Grigore and Sandu Sandrin and played in recitals and concerts on the stages in Bucharest, Brasov, Braila, Bacau, and Timisoara. Since 2007 she has been a master piano accompanist with the National Opera House in Bucharest. Since 1992, she has been teaching at the National Music University. In 2003 she was appointed official pianist of the “Musical Holidays’ at Piatra Neamt, and in 2004, official pianist of the international project "Rusalka" at Sibiu. She participated as a piano accompanist in the master-classes taught by Viorica Cortez, Eduard Tumagian, Nelly Miricioiu.
