This September, opera director James Hurley mounts a new ‘circus opera’ production of Campra’s Le Carnaval de Venise at Vache Baroque in Buckinghamshire. In this blog, he discusses the motivations behind the project.
As an opera director, circus is not normally part of my remit, until conductor Jonathan Darbourne approached me about this summer’s production at Vache Baroque to mark their 5th anniversary at the historic house in Buckinghamshire. Jonathan and Vache Baroque co-founder Betty Markharinsky had been mining the archives for the right opera for a circus production and they hit gold with a little-known opera by André Campra: Le Carnaval de Venise (The Venetian Carnival).
Le Carnaval de Venise is in fact an opera within an opera, written in both French and Italian. Campra’s father was Italian and the opera unfolds like a series of tourist snapshots of the city of Venice – St Mark’s Square, the carnival ball, the gondoliers boasting of their prowess and the high-stakes world of the gambling casinos. It’s an immersive voyage through the hedonistic pleasures of Venice, unfolding over a single topsy-turvy day, and its ‘set-piece’ structure – with each act based around a stand-alone divertissement illustrating a different aspect of Venetian carnival life – lends itself perfectly to circus’ act-based structure.
With a full-scale big top circus tent with a 5-metre truss to be mounted in the grounds of The Vache, the company are not going halves on the wow factor. For this hybrid circus opera, I have been paired up with Associate Director Rebecca Solomon to deliver a production replete with aerial acrobatics, Cyr wheels, kabuki silk wizardry and foot archery. Besides, circus wizardry is just what’s needed when the goddess Minerva (sung imperiously by Katie Bray) descends to earth in the opera’s Prologue to sort out the backstage mayhem for the staging of yet another opera about Orpheus’ descent to the underworld – and tears up the script, just as the curtain is about to rise on opening night!
This meta-theatrical – and highly original – opening to Campra’s opera inspired us to tell the story through the eyes of a writer, who is struggling with writer’s block until he comes across a forgotten box of mementos from his time in Venice at Carnival time. As he rifles though the tourist knick-knacks, he comes across his travelogue and memories come flooding back of well-known street and canal scenes – as well as the two Venetian women who fell in love with him, and the one who broke his heart.
Campra wrote the opera early in his career, under a pseudonym, shortly after Lully’s death. Lully had dominated the French opera scene during the reign of Louis XIV, pushing all rivals ruthlessly out of the way. By writing his opera both in French and Italian, Campra was not only poking fun at the endless operatic renditions of the Orpheus myth and the typical backstage antics at any Italian opera house, but he was also parodying the French tragedie lyrique tradition championed by Lully, as he created a new hybrid work where tragedy is mixed with a coarse, unbridled comedy, reminiscent of the Italian comic-theatrical troupes who were outlawed in France during the latter part of Louis XIV’s reign.
For this production, we have been blessed with a cast of opera singers ready to show off their circus skills – in fact, counter-tenor Feargal Mostyn-Williams was a previous member of the National Centre for Circus Arts. Columbian soprano Julieth Lozano exudes all the exuberance of her colourful, carnival-loving country. After visiting Venice, Julieth became so obsessed with carnival masques, she had a full-body masque tattoo. Zambian baritone Themba Mvula has previously worked with puppetry and choreography. And we have the perfect Pluto, God of the Underworld in Italian bass baritone Giuseppe Pellingra, who oozes malevolence and charisma in every note.
Of course, we couldn’t do without Venetian Carnival masks and all the imagery of the commedia dell’arte. In the spirit of Carnival, there will be revelry and joyous anarchy to match Campra’s endlessly inventive music – and we can’t wait to get the audience involved too. We are thrilled at the prospect of welcoming as many children as possible for the specially-adapted family-friendly performance on the morning of Sunday 7th September, when several children from this summer’s opera camp take to the stage in the chorus.
Come ready for high-jinx magic, Russian roulette archery and more over two weekends on Saturday and Sunday 30th and 31st August, and 6th and 7th September.
To keep up to date with our latest news, interviews and reviews, and access extra content, sign up to our newsletter.
To check out and subscribe to our YouTube catalogue of interviews and reviews, click here.
Vache Baroque is the only country house opera accessible on the London underground at the end of the Metropolitan Line.
The Vache, Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire