Viva la mamma
Feverish and already weakened by his illness, Gaetano Donizetti considered, towards the end of his life, to bring his opera Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali into a final form. But he is running out of time. When Donizetti died in April 1848, the farce that had begun 21 years earlier remained a patchwork. The Swiss director Mélanie Huber stages Donizetti's stormy and entertaining capers on the madness of everyday theater, which, freely adapted under the title Viva la mamma, found its way back onto the stage in the 20th century with singers from the International Opera Studio. She tells the piece in a newly written text and plot frame by Stephan Teuwissen, with whom she was successful forBartleby, the scribe after Melville worked together at the Schauspielhaus Zurich. In this version, the composer, strained by fever and madness, appears himself. Slightly over-the-top, but also poetic and dream-driven, Gaetano gets a subaltern devil to grant him one last wish: the performance of his opera pastiche Morals and Bad Habits of the Theater.The devil lets himself be harnessed, and before he knows it, he is given the lead role - Mamma Agata, a quirky artist mother, as incorrigible as it is unstoppable. Opposite her are a smug prima donna and a penetrating husband, second- and third-rate singers, a German tenor and three gentlemen from the theater management who are desperately trying to keep the threads of fate and opera in their hands. As expected, the rehearsals get completely out of hand, and poor Gaetano is allowed to watch as his work is transformed into a hectic devil's kitchen.
