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M22: La Finta Giardiniera (The Fake Lady Gardener) K. 196

This DVD is a live recording of a performance of Wolfgang Mozart’s early 3 acts opera from the Landestheater at the Salzburg Summer Festival in 2006 as a part of the M22 Project.

Written in 1775 on the libretto by Giuseppe Petrosellini, this work is very rarely performed nowadays. It is a cross between opera seria (dramatically serious opera with scene-stopping arias) and opera buffa (comedic opera with more emphasis in story/joke-telling) featuring an exceedingly convoluted plot, a questionable work structure, and a music that is more marvelously divine than the libretto deserves. It is a perfect example of why one must believe in what the music tells rather than in what the lyric says when one listens to a Mozart opera.

Mozart's music, unlike the convoluted libretto, tells a coherent story that often doesn’t jive with the words being said/sung. Mozart was quite a gifted and linguistic jokester, and there is quite a bit of musical winking and nodding in this work that makes it clear (if you pay attention to what you’re hearing) that the character often means the exact opposite of what words are pouring out of his/her mouth.

There are more ensemble pieces here than in his earlier works, especially the 2 extended ensemble finales to Acts I & II that really work wonder in keeping the story interesting and moving at a good pace. This performance further quickens the pace by cutting 6 arias (amount to a good half an hour of music), which isn’t that questionable a practice considering the live nature of the performance. Salzburg Summer Festival staged all 22 operas by Mozart to celebrate his 250th birth year in 2006, and it must have cost them a fortune to pay all the artists involved. I guess the mutilation of many of these M22 productions was done as much to save money as to keep the audience from dying of boredom in some of the longer operas. At any rate, I wish this work is performed more just for the sake of its beautiful music. Though the libretto isn’t quite accommodating for coherent staging.

To sample music of this opera (but NOT from this production), visit: www.mozart-weltweit.de/serie33.htm

The story actually begins before the curtain rises. Count Belfiore was in such a fit of blind rage while arguing with his lover, the Marchesa Violante Onesti that he stabbed her with a knife, then fled from the scene believing her to be dead. Fortunately for the girl, she is nursed back to health with the help of her loyal page Roberto, who then accompanies her in her search for Belfiore (disguising themselves as the gardeners Sandrina and Nardo, who have found employment in the garden of Don Anchise, the Mayor of Lagonero).

The opera’s plot is a comedy of mismatched loves... 3 pairs of them. Don Anchise loves Sandrina, who spends the opera teetering between revealing her true identity and reverting to the made up ones. Sandrina/Violante, being a classic model of domestic abusee, still wants Belfiore back after all the unhealthful hard iron supplement he gave her in their previous encounter, even though he is now engaged to Don Anchise’s self-absorbed niece, Arminda. I’m not sure if Arminda ever loves anyone, but she does seem to enjoy spending the opera tormenting her persistent ex-lover Ramiro (a formerly soprano-castrato role) and ends up with him anyway. Nardo/Roberto also finds himself hopelessly in love with Don Anchise’s maid, Serpetta, who spends most of the opera fancying after her boss the mayor over her gardener admirer).

The story gets really complicated for his mistress Sandrina/Violante, who finds herself recognized by her ex-lover Belfiore half-way through the first Act, and her being romantically wooed by Don Anchise himself, to the displeasure of Serpetta. Intrigues and mistaken identities abound in the next 2 hours (including both halves of the abusive pair of Violante and Belfiore indulging a fabulously temporary bout of insanity by the end of the 2nd Act). After much ado about many things, the opera ends with 3 rather questionable romantic pairings, with Don Anchise being the odd man out who closes the opera musing of his ambition of finding another gardener girl for a mate.

Cast:
Count Belfiore (murderously jealous ex of Violante) ::: John Mark Ainsley (tenor)
Violante /Sandrina (survived his murder attempt and now wants to give him another try) ::: Alexandra Reinprecht (soprano)
Roberto/Nardo (her page/accomplice)::: Markus Werba (tenor)
Don Achise (Mayor of Lagonero) ::: John Graham-Hall (tenor)
Serpetta (his maid) ::: Adriana Kucerová (soprano)
Arminda (Belfiore’s fiancée) ::: Véronique Gens (soprano)
Ramiro (her ex-lover) ::: Ruxandra Donose (mezzo-soprano)
Ivor Bolton conducting the Mozarteum Orchestra
The Salzburger Landestheater Danse Ensemble & Supporting Ensemble
Stage Director ::: Doris Dörrie
Video Director ::: Agnes Méth

To see photos from this production, go to :www.salzburgfestival.at/fotoarchiv.php?lang=en

Seeing as this DVD is of a production from Salzburg in the 21st Century, it goes without saying that it is not traditionally staged. I must admit to not being very familiar with Doris Dörrie’s films, but her staging of this inane plot is quite counter-intuitively brilliant. The back-story between Belfiore, Violante, and Roberto is told during the overture by ballet dancers in period costume from 18th Century Austria. They are replaced by the singers in the same costume by the beginning of Act I, and their retention of the period costume really works wonder in helping me identify each characters of the opera.

The rest of the story is set in a garden center of a large modern superstore, with Don Anchise being the center’s manager, his maid Serpetta and the 2 ‘gardeners’ now his employees. It is quite amazing how Frau Dörrie uses the setting to provide the singing actors/actresses with something to interact with (a lot of dancing plants, flowers, critters... including a giant Venus’ fly trap that opportunistically mistakes Belfiore for lunch) without them being distracting. The visual separation of Belfiore, Violante/Sandrina, and Roberto/Nardo from the rest of the cast by their period costume works really well in the story telling. The others (I guess we can call them the innocent folks these baggaged three implanted themselves on) seem from the punk era of the 80's.

I don’t care for the Marilyn Manson look they have made Ruxandra Donose’s black-leather clad Ramiro into much, but she sings beautifully and is so dramatically tragic, making the whole thing so wonderfully comedic that it all fits well (it also allows me to sympathize with Arminda more in her resistance of Ramiro’s overtures.... after all, what girl would find it easy to fancy a guy who looks like Marilyn Manson and who goes around making out with a mop stick, anyhow?). This is an ensemble opera, and the cast ranges from good to very good musically, and is uniformly good in their acting. Everyone is convincing and never overdoes the comedy. I’m especially impressed with the comedic acting of Markus Werba’s Roberto/Nardo and Adriana Kucekova’s Serpetta. Alexandra Reinprecht takes 2 acts to vocally warm up as the title role Violante/Sandrina. John Mark Ainsley is a wonderfully suave and self-absorbed Belfiore who makes his music sounds much easier to sing than it really is. John Graham-Hall is a good comic actor who isn’t well served by the close up camera shots (somehow zooming in every time he’s having a peek at Maestro Bolton in the orchestra pit... Opera singers have to do that, by the way, since they have to keep in sync with the orchestra. Though some singers are more adept at concealing that even from the probing camera than others). The French soprano, Véronique Gens is a delightfully spoiled Arminda who can kill with her smiles.

All in all, this is a good ensemble performance by all the principals accompanied by the very proper sounding Mozarteum Orchestra conducted by the enthusiastic (though neither very colorful nor humorous) Ivor Bolton in the pit. One of the better productions in the M22 DVDs set, thanks to the imaginative staging by Doris Dörrie and the good acting cast. It is an unconventional staging that really works well, though if I have to choose only one DVD of this work, I would still prefer the more musically complete version by Zurich Opera conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt (also a modernized staging).

2 DVDs. Sung in Italian with subtitle in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish. Extras included a ‘Making Of’ documentary and clips from other performances from the Salzburg Festival 2006. Booklet contains tract by tract synopsis, but no printed libretto.

Some other Mozart opera:
Apollo et Hyacinthus (Salzburg 2006), Ascanio in Alba (Salzburg 2006), Bastien und Bastienne/Der Schauspieldirektor (Salzburg 2006), La clemenza di Tito (Salzburg 2003), La clemenza di Tito (Zürich 2005), La clemenza di Tito (Munich 2006), La clemenza di Tito (JE Gardiner), Cosi fan tutte (Ponnelle film), Don Giovanni (Met 2000), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Salzburg 1998), La finta giardiniera (Salzburg 2006), La finta semplice (Salzburg 2006), Idomeneo (Salzburg 2006), Idomeneo (Met 198-), Lucio Silla (Salzburg 2006), Mitridate (Salzburg 1997), Mitridate (Rousset), Le nozze di Figaro (live performance- SDO 2007), Die Zauberflöte (ROH 2001), Die Zauberflöte (Modena 2005), Die Zauberflöte (Zürich 1999)

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12