The opening night of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, presented by Southern Opera, with Martin Snell as Gianni Schicchi, Grant Dickson, Virgilio Marino, Anna Argyle, Maree Hawtin-Morrow, Raemon Greenwood and Rachel Doig. Players from the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Peter Walls. Directed by Mark Hadlow. James Hay Theatre, Thursday night, March the 12th. Reviewed by David Sell.
Gianni Schicchi is the most popular of the group of three one-act operas that Puccini intended to be performed in the one night.. It is great entertainment on its own but, as producer Mark Hadlow observed you have to give the audience something else for their money.
That something else was Blooming Opera, forty minutes of florally-inspired operatic excerpts that opened the evening with a sampling of song and singers. Blooming Opera assured my anticipation of Martin Snell as an excellent Gianni Schicchi, and Anna Argyle as a wonderful Lauretta.
Neither disappointed. Martin Snell drove the action and the music brilliantly with his personality and voice. Anna Argyle again impressed as one of our finest young singers, and an operatic performer with a great future. Of course, everyone waited for Puccini’s gem, the pleading Oh my beloved daddy, that is the pivotal point of the story, and for one so young, Anna Argyle sang it with unusual maturity and depth.
Mark Hadlow chose to set the production in the nineteenth century. This worked well, and Mark McEntyre’s set gave ample scope for effective stage changes that are essential for a production entirely restricted to one room. As Mark Hadlow’s first foray into the world of opera production, it succeeded in conveying the outcome of family greed, and the very funny situations, and profit, that the wily Schicchi gets out of it.
Musically, Peter Walls kept the performance secure and alive. I was much happier with Michael Vinten’s ensemble arrangement this time than in last years The Spanish Clock. In fact it could more accurately be called a reduced orchestra.
However, again I missed the colour of the original language. English can never give the sharp staccato that is the essence of Italian humour.
Gianni Schicchi has three more Christchurch performances before moving on to Ashburton and Oamaru. It deserves capacity houses at all of them.