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| Reviews Salieri didn't poison Mozart. Indeed, on one remarkable occasion they staged one-act opera at opposite ends of the same room, during an imperial dinner. This is the spur for sparkling entertainment from Co-Opera. Salieri's story about a composer working to a deadline and Mozart's tale of two warring sopranos and an impresario have been dovetailed neatly by Kevin Miller, and conducted in sprightly fashion by Brian Chatterton. The rival sopranos are the ebullient tragedy queen sung by Teresa La Rocca and the coquettish soubrette of the effervescent Tessa Miller. La Rocca hurls herself into the role and Miller uses authentic gestures as she sings to add to the impact of her performance. Around them three men circle, plot and organise. Darian S. Johns is an elegant Salieri, Andrew Turner a forceful Da Ponte and Benjamin Rasheed's graceful tenor and comic timing really enliven the role of the poor impresario who must get a show together in just four days. Nerissa Pearce is the on stage continuo player and servant, and the instrumental ensemble play capably but it would be lovely to hear the work with a Mozart sized orchestra in a more supportive acoustic. Salieri fashioned elegant Italian operas with great skill, but every moment of Mozart's music speaks of genius, playful and engaging. As a rough guide in this show, if it's sung in German it's Mozart, in Italian or French, it's Salieri. To keep you better informed, recitatives and dialogue are in English and English phrases pop up in the arias. Whether the words or the music is most important in an opera is an ongoing debate, but dramatic flair and colour, allied to energetic performances such as these are what really count to make an opera come alive. Ewart Shaw, The Adelaide Advertiser, Friday 6 Aug 2004.
Mentioning the names Salieri and Mozart conjures images of a sourfaced, talentless composer who seeks revenge against a god who perversely chooses to implant genius in an obnoxious, smutty-minded juvenile. But rather than perpetuate the long-discredited myth of Mozart's demise caused by poisoning at the hands of an embittered rival, Kevin Miller's Prima La Musica offers a quite different slant on a history's most famous instance of composer jealousy. It is more a case of their music, not their characters going head to head. What Miller has done is cleverly splice together two miniature scenic opera by both composers - Mozart's Der Schauspieldirektor and Salieri's Prima La Musica e poi le parole - that were premiered as a double bill on the same night in 1786, at Vienna's Schonbrunn Palace. The two operas make such a natural fit that one wonders why combining them has not been thought of before. Into Salieri's opera, about a composer maestro who faces having to write an opera in four days, Miller weaves in the plot of Mozart's opera, about an impresario trying to cope with two sparring prima donna sopranos. The result in 18th-century theatresports of high entertainment, with comic rivalry erupting not only between the sopranos but also between the composer and his librettist. And the delightful irony is that the hard suffering, red-coated opera composer, who witnesses one of the sopranos turning her nose up at his manuscripts and flinging them across the room, is by inference Salieri himself. A young cast play up to the situational comedy finely. Teresa La Rocca and Tessa Miller are extremely well matched as the two rival sopranos. Miller, appropriately stealing all the attention, is especially brilliant in voice, movement and gesture in her portrayal of the dizzy soubrette who finally wins the limelight. The male roles are capable sung, by Benjamin Rasheed as the impresario, Andrew Turner as the librettist, and Darian Johns as the maestro. Musical content is somewhat thin to begin with, the arias of the first half sounding generic and wooden. It is no surprise to discover that this is Salieri's music; despite lively and committed performances supplied by the cast, it somehow lacks personality compared with the shapely, invigorating overture and arias by Mozart that occupy the second half. Under canny direction from Miller, the stage whirls with action and the humour bubbles along, deftly threading its way through four languages - Italian, German, English and French. Not one seam shows in the whole entertainment. A small but accomplished chamber group of six young players conducted by Co-Opera's musical director, Brian Chatterton, performs buoyantly throughout. To have harpsichord in addition to piano is a little odd; but its use, mostly in recitatives, adds to the production's amusing historical licence. Presenting compact, tourable versions of standard opera fare is what Co-Opera has done with considerable success ever since Chatterton started the company in 1990. To branch out and present newly created shows such as this is a valuable new departure. Graham Strahle, The Adelaide Review, September 2004. |
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