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3Hong Kong’s Musica Viva has incrementally moved from one full opera production per year—in December—to two. If this recent production of Mozart’s comic masterpiece is any indication, the smaller production in late September featuring entirely local singers has, over the past couple of years, matured and is hitting its stride. These productions have tended to concentrate on the lighter side of the repertoire—the past two years have featured comic operas by Gaetano Donizetti. Le Nozze di Figaro, while a comedy, is not necessarily funny: it runs considerably longer and, Mozart being Mozart, lends itself to multiple interpretations. The work was here abridged to just about two hours and the cast, particularly a perky Phoebe Tam as the maid Susanna, tilted the performance toward the humor. Oscar Droscha’s Count Almaviva had the wandering eye (and hands) that the role demands, but was not the irredeemably odious character he can sometimes be. Musica Viva’s productions often have good chemistry—ensemble performances where the whole is greater than the mere sum of the parts—and this Marriage of Figaro followed the pattern. But even ensemble performances can deliver up individual surprises: soprano Vicki Wu lit up the stage in the small part of Barberina. She will be a singer worth watching.
Opera for everyone – that’s the message behind Waitress on Top, an adaptation of the Italian comic operetta La Serva Padrona which will be performed later this month as part of the new Italia Mia Festival. Presented by the Italian Cultural Institute in Hong Kong, the operetta takes Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s 1733 opera and resets it in an Italian restaurant in Hong Kong. “We thought it would be nice to bring this opera to Hong Kong and do an adaptation (set) in Hong Kong,” says Clemente Contestabile, the consul general of Italy in Hong Kong. “The production will feature dialogue in English and Cantonese, the subject itself is funny, the script is light and people will laugh and enjoy it very much.” Contestabile intends to show an opera every year as part of the Italia Mia festival, which will take place every October and November. In a bid to encourage local and younger audiences, tickets to the Oct 29 performance at Chai Wan’s Youth Square Y Theatre are free of charge. “The Italia Mia Festival is for everyone in Hong Kong and we want to reach out to the local community,” Contestabile says. Waitress on Top stars Hong Kong soprano Etta Fung as Serpina in a production that is deliberately intimate, featuring just two singers (Fung and Isaac Droscha as Uberto), alongside music director Marco Iannelli who doubles in a non-singing role. The finale includes three arias from Donizetti’s Don Pasquale to help, as Iannelli puts it, “make (the ending) a little bigger”, rather than going with the more subtle ending of the original opera. Together with the show’s director Peter Gordon — who was named Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia earlier this year for his contributions to Italian opera — Ianneli looked for a cast that would represent Hong Kong’s mix of cultures. “We’re trying to propose to the audience this mix of cultures in Hong Kong and that this is what makes Hong Kong a beautiful and unique place,” Iannelli says. “Etta will use Cantonese to help really set the action in Hong Kong.” Contemporary themes Finding ways to make opera accessible and to engage diverse audiences seems to be a common goal among Hong Kong’s growing number of opera companies. Over the next two months, several operas will be performed on stages across Hong Kong and Macao, showcasing a growing interest and demand for the art form. In September, Musica Viva staged two sold-out performances of Le Nozze di Figaro at Hong Kong City Hall. Featuring an all-Hong Kong cast, including Sammy Chien as Figaro, Droscha as Count Almaviva and Phoebe Tam as Susanna, the opera highlighted local talent and was the first of two productions this season by the company’s director-general Kingman Lo. Next up is Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow, an operetta in three acts which will be performed from Dec 6 to 8 at the Hong Kong City Hall. Opera Hong Kong’s Rigoletto is playing at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre through Sunday, Oct 13, also as part of the Italia Mia Festival. The production is by Fondazione Teatro Lirico di Cagliari and stars Roberto Frontali in the title role. “Rigoletto is one of the most performed operas in the world,” says Opera Hong Kong’s artistic director Warren Mok. “The plot is incredible: the evilness of mankind, quest for power and its relationship with the lust and sexual abuse, violence, injustice still resonate (with today’s) audience. Verdi’s music is a perfect match to the plot and its characterization.” Frontali is known for his Verdi roles and received strong praise for his Rigoletto earlier this year at the Metropolitan Opera. The rest of the cast put together by Mok includes Anton Keremidtchiev and Audrey Luna along with Hong Kong singers, including Joyce Wong, Carol Lin and Bobbie Zhang. “It’s a strong Rigoletto,” Mok says. “We bring in the entire production from Italy and also their design team. We are glad to have Pier Francesco Maestrini as the director and Paolo Olmi, a highly respected conductor, can no doubt do a wonderful job to reveal Verdi’s powerful music.”
Musica Viva’s new production of Norma—Vincenzo Bellini at his bel canto best—is perhaps an omen: it is just one letter shy of “normal”. This was not the first opera performance this year, but it was the first without masks on stage. Bellini is not often performed in Hong Kong; that the City Hall Concert Hall was about as full as the (relatively lenient) social distancing rules allow, is also a good sign. Although conditions in Hong Kong have eased, any production of this size requires planning many months in advance; scheduling it at all requires a considerable leap of faith. Hong Kong’s COVID regulations directly and indirectly caused casting difficulties, and all overseas singers had to persevere through a three-week mandatory quarantine. Any singer on stage had to want to be there; it showed. Hilary Ginther as Adalgisa Hilary Ginther as Adalgisa This was very much a traditional performance: no resettings away from the dark forests of Gaul to establish some elusive contemporary relevance; the “stand and up sing” moments were left as that. The title role was sung by young American soprano Meryl Dominguez, who had stepped into the opening night performance in a schedule change. If this, or the fact that it was her role debut, caused any jitters, none were evident. Hearing Norma sung by a singer not far off the age that the Celtic priestess herself would have been, lent a welcome freshness and immediacy to the part. Dominguez was well-matched by Hilary Ginther’s Adalgisa, very much the fetching ingénue. One can (almost) understand the Roman soldier Pollione’s switching his affections from the by now maternal Norma. But it was Dominguez and Ginther’s duets that were arguably the highlights of the evening: the pair’s relative youth added a lightness well-suited to who the characters actually are. Both were likeable, and hence believable. The men get short shrift in Norma. Neither the glorious music nor the robust singing from tenor Dominick Chenes can really do much to change the fact that Pollione is one of the least attractive characters in opera, without even much in the way of villainy to make up for his fecklessness and infidelity. At least he had the good grace to look appropriately terrified when confronted with Norma’s fury. Norma’s father Oroveso, sung by Puerto Rican bass Ricardo Lugo, is a somewhat stolid character, but has a sonorous bass aria that kicks off Act I. Among the local singers, tenor Henry Ngan continues to develop, with a strong presence in the smaller role of Flavio, Pollione’s sidekick. Collette rounded out the cast as Clotilde and Vivian Ip was in the pit.
