Il giovedi grasso UK premiere, English translation by Clive Timms Nina Sophie Karthaeuser Teodora Howard Kirk Stefanina Sarah Redgwick Sigismondo Peter Grant Camilla Sian Wigley Cola Brandon Velarde Ernesto Breffni Horgan Colonel Hans Voschezang Gianni Schicchi Zita Margriet van Reisen Simone Barry Martin Rinuccio Andrew Rees Marco Frank Lopez Ciesca Jenny Carlstedt Gherardo Tim Ward Nella Katarina Jovanovic Betto di Signa Peter Grant Gherardino Patrick Allies Gianni Schicchi Hans Voschezang Lauretta Sally Matthews Doctor Joao Fernandes Lawyer Christian Immler Pinellino Brandon Velarde Guccio Vladimir Hilmarsson Conductor Clive Timms Director Stephen Medcalf Il giovedi grasso is a very minor very early short opera by Donizetti, a sort of Neapolitan zarzuela. Its plot claims to be based on a minor work of Moliere but really just consists of a series of comic set pieces around two tricksters, one of whom isn't as clever as he thinks he is and the other of whom is a lot cleverer than anybody expects a chap from the country to be. Its music is a lot of nothing much quasi-Rossini to show off a sweet soprano and two buffo baritones. Somehow it isn't worth the detailed, elegant production and accomplished performance it got at the Guildhall tonight, or even Clive Timms' ingeniously rhymed and highly singable translation. But it was worth seeing as a study in what a director and performers can do with nothing without actually abusing the work. The curtain (actually a sliding screen in a slightly skewed false proscenium) opened to show the lovers Nina and Teodato snogging, her enthusiastic, him embarassed and unresponsively. They sang their opening music, then the other characters, Sigismondo their clever pal, Camilla his spirited wife and Stefanina the maid entered in character so as to leave no doubt who was who if you'd read the synopsis and joined in. These five sang a substantial part of the opening ensemble in a row downstage, straight to the audience, without being boring and as if the music was a wonderful vehicle for their characters. Other set pieces were equally detailed and considerate of the music and conventions. Camilla for reasons of the plot pretending to be a crazed abandoned lover of Ernesto, the country chap who is supposed to marry Nina, appears in Lucia di Lammermoor kit and is chased up a ladder when he turns the tables by pretending to recognise her to make Sigismondo jealous. At the end, Nina inevitably realises that the supposed buffoon Ernesto, who has made her father let her marry Teodoro because he understands that she doesn't love him, is the better man. The production was set roughly at the date of Gianni Schicchi's composition, with war maps all over the walls of the Colonel's house. The main set consisted of two walls of a room, meeting at right angles backstage, with a mediaeval landscape painted on a panel on one side through which the trickster heroes in both works entered. There wasn't much point to the period, except that it was easy enough to make it look Italian and the women's clothes looked good. Sophie Karhaeuser's tailored cream linen was a perfect match for her cool, slightly creamy voice. Sian Wigley did a very funny mad scene, though her singing wasn't particularly incisive. Peter Grant was outstanding vocally and amusingly not-as-bright-as-he-thinks. (If anyone ever gets round to putting nigel molesworth to music, Grant would be ideal.) Breffni Horgan's singing was a bit uneven, but often gloriously Italian tenorate. He was far too charming and attractive even when diguised as a hayseed. The trickster hero of Gianni Schicchi, as played by Hans Voschezang, was also too young to be Lauretta's father and too conventionally attractive, though he did a fair job of the grouchy old Colonel in Giovedi. He had a good sense of comedy and an edge of danger in his performance, but his singing was on the bland side in comparison, though definitely all there musically. Sally Matthews, a hard-as-nails Armida in last year's Rinaldo, pretty much stole the show with her famous aria, which she made persuasive rather than saccharine. She was unfazed by the prat who started clapping and cheering before the end. The rest of the cast made a fine Italianate Adams family in a production that seemed aware that Gianni Schicchi was written at a time when the movies had a mature, rich language of characterization. The rationale for this double bill seems to be that giovedi grasso occurs just before Lent and is a carnival piece, while Gianni Schicchi is based on an episode in Dante's Inferno and so associated with Good Friday at the end of Lent. But Schicchi is even more a blackly comic vision of hell as other people on earth. In spite of all the similarities (girls trying to persuade dads, corrupt lawyers, impersonation, hayseed trickster baritones turning the tables), Schicchi is so much more substantial that it overbalances the double bill.