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Star sopranos such as Emma Matthews, Sara Macliver and Rachelle Durkin are just a few of Perth’s recent gifts to the opera world, and its generosity certainly hasn’t stopped there. Just ask the folk at Pinchgut Opera. The company’s annual productions might be a Sydney specialty, but this year sees not one but three proud Perth women on the roster, as director Talya Masel and singers Fiona Campbell and Taryn Fiebig join forces with a merry band of locals and imports to bring Francesco Cavalli’s madcap comedy L’Ormindo to life in true Pinchgut style.
What is it about Perth, then, that makes it such a mainspring of artistic talent? Talya Masel, who graduated from WAAPA and now works in theatres throughout Australia and abroad, thinks she has the answer. ‘It really is something in the water!’ she exclaims. ‘Not the water we drink, but the water we swim in. There’s something about the ocean. It feeds the spirit.’ Masel finds inspiration, she says, in the ‘magnificence and freedom’ of Perth’s beautiful beaches. ‘I stare at the ocean and stuff comes to me.’ Mezzo-soprano Fiona Campbell, who will take the role of the young queen Erisbe, echoes Masel’s sentiments about the freedom Perth affords. ‘Perhaps Perth gives people the space to develop their technique,’ she suggests. ‘There aren’t so many distractions!’ Campbell also sees advantages in the city’s smaller size. ‘There are opportunities for the young performer in Perth, if you are prepared to work hard, that are not so easy to come by in the bigger cities. Perhaps that gives us an early sense of possibilities!’
A similar sense of possibilities permeates Masel’s vision of L’Ormindo, whose web of amorous intrigues is complicated even by baroque standards. Masel’s task has been to make some meaningful sense of the opera’s endless plot twists without discarding its exoticism. Deciding where to locate her production was, she says, ‘a long process’, but she eventually determined upon creating what she describes as ‘a version of the place it’s written – a version of Fez’. The key, Masel explains, was to ‘think about what the qualities are which make it magical, somewhere where everything is possible’ and then to create a world which is ‘immensely recognisable in one way and also wonderfully romantic’.
Identifying the recognisable within the exotic has been a vital part of Masel’s approach to this piece. Early publicity for this production claimed that L’Ormindo was ‘not one of those operas that provide insights into the human condition’, and described it as ‘a melodrama with broad brushstrokes of comedy’. Masel doesn’t entirely agree. ‘I think it does touch on the human condition. There are comic and absurd elements, but fundamentally it’s about love, which is a major part of the human condition!’ The situations might be outlandish, she says, but the characters and relationships depicted within those situations are not. ‘They happen all the time. Everyone has made bizarre choices for love. We’ve all had the folly of love thrust upon us.’ In fact, Masel adds, ‘that’s what makes it funny – we know how they feel! These things don’t just happen on stage or in magazines, they happen in real life.’
Melodrama or not, the heart of L’Ormindo is Cavalli’s music, a fact of which Masel is intensely and enthusiastically aware. ‘Opera is always driven first and foremost by the music. The first thing I say in the rehearsal room is that we must never presume that we are cleverer than the composer or the music.’ Her goal in directing opera, she says, is to ‘show and support the music in the best possible way. We must never try to out-gimmick or outsmart the opera – especially in a baroque piece, that would be very cheeky.’ Campbell elaborates further on the links between the opera’s compositional style and the drama it depicts. ‘It is a very free flowing, almost chatty kind of style,’ she says. ‘It is very attractive music that has a mostly naturalistic narrative, rather than the very formalised structure of the da capo arias, say, of Handel.’ That style has its challenges, she says – ‘you can’t rely so much on lyrical beauty’ – but also brings a dramatic edge to the piece: ‘you can approach it with great thespian flare!’
Cavalli’s music, like that of many of his contemporaries, has enjoyed a moderate upswing in popularity in recent years, but his operas will nevertheless be unfamiliar territory for many audience members. But unfamiliar territory is what Pinchgut is all about. Coming after Vivaldi’s Juditha triumphans and Charpentier’s David et Jonathas, this staging of L’Ormindo constitutes the company’s third consecutive Australian premiere. Does that make things easier or harder for Masel? ‘Easier,’ she says. ‘Definitely easier. There are no expectations. You don’t have audiences coming in saying “this is how I like my Traviata” and so on.’ There are, she hastens to add ‘preconceived ideas about the sound — because Pinchgut audiences are intelligent — and of the standard. But not about the show... which is a good thing!’
The season doesn’t only mark L’Ormindo’s Australian début — it’s also Masel’s first time working with Pinchgut. She’s effusive about the experience, and especially about the concentration which comes of Pinchgut’s producing only one opera per year. ‘It means all energies are focused on your show: for that year, you’re it. I've never had that before; I’ve always worked with companies which were doing multiple shows at a time or in one year.’ Now, she says, she has ‘all the attention’, and she loves it. There is, she says, ‘a definite spirit that is Pinchgut. It’s like a great big family. Really lovely.’
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Pinchgut Opera Presents L'Ormindo
Wednesday 2 December 7.30pm
Saturday 5 December 7.30pm
Sunday 6 December 5pm
Monday 7 December 7.30pm
City Recital Hall Angel Place
Tickets: $30-$115
Bookings: 8256 2222
www.cityrecitalhall.com
www.pinchgutopera.com.au
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