Cavalleria rusticana / Pagliacci at Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff - review: an evening of taut, no-nonsense drama

Welsh National Opera’s revival of their first ever production, conducted by the same Carlo Rizzi, was gloriously performed

Steph Power
Wednesday 08 June 2016 10:23 BST
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Welsh National Opera: Cav & Pag
Welsh National Opera: Cav & Pag (Bill Cooper)

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Seventy years ago, Welsh National Opera’s first ever production was of Mascagni and Leoncavallo’s oft-twinned, white-hot verismo ‘Cav & Pag’. Life in the operas’ rural Italy might be ‘nasty, brutish and short’ for those embroiled in love vendettas but WNO has more than endured, becoming a vital part of the opera world. In celebration, they are reviving Elijah Moshinsky’s much loved 1996 half-centenary staging of the double-bill, conducted by the same Carlo Rizzi, now WNO Conductor Laureate.

Rizzi’s expert musicality drove an evening of taut, no-nonsense drama, well sung by the principals and gloriously performed by the WNO chorus and orchestra. David Kempster and Gwyn Hughes Jones straddled the testosterone-fuelled divide as Tonio-Alfio and Turiddu-Canio respectively, while Camilla Roberts (Santuzza) and Meeta Raval (Nedda) matched them passion for passion.

Neither staging proved the worse for its patina of nostalgia: Cav evokes 19th-century village life whilst Pag is a prewar of motor cars and sunglasses-adorned housewives. The emotions are viscerally timeless: jealousy, lust and bitter hatred leading to murder, double murder. But it’s Leoncavallo’s washed-up, ageing clowns which most tug the heartstrings as tragedy overpowers his clever play within a play, turned violently real and unfunny.

Until June 11. Wales Millennium Centre: 029 2063 6464 / Birmingham Hippodrome: 0844 338 5000 www.wno.org.uk

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