Opera Highlights

Gartmore Village Hall, Stirlingshire, 7/10/25

Ceferina Penny (soprano); Chloe Harris (mezzo-soprano); Luvo Maranti (tenor); James Geidt (baritone); Meghan Rhoades (music director/piano)

Scottish Opera’s 2025-26 ‘Opera Highlights’ Tour follows the familiar winning formula.  An eclectic selection of goodies, both familiar and unfamiliar, from the wider operatic repertoire, is fitted to an original context and plot and four vocalists and a pianist perform it as though it were a fully-staged two-act opera.  The four vocalists this autumn are Manchester-born British-Argentine soprano in her SO debut Ceferina Penny, Australian mezzo on her second year as SO Emerging Artist, Chloe Harris (Nancy the baker’s daughter in ‘Albert Herring’, Counsel for the Plaintiff in ‘Trial by Jury, Yelena Ivanovna Popova in ‘The Bear’), South African tenor and SO Emerging Artist 2025-26 Luvo Maranti (Gonzalve the poet in ‘L’heure espagnole’ and the stable groom in ‘The Bear’), and British baritone in his SO debut James Geidt.  In their second year as a SO Emerging Artist is Meghan Rhoades, as music director and pianist of the production (with a digital piano and playing from music on a tablet).  The production is devised collaboratively by SO Head of Music Fiona MacSherry (who selected the music), Director Emma Doherty and  Designer Kenneth MacLeod.  Themes of forbidden love, abandoning inhibitions and pursuing release from the monotony of the daily grind converge in the preparations for an office ‘leaving do’ and the office party itself.  A convoluted and unravelling love quadrangle provides both soap-opera drama and wry comedy.  The set is a regional office of Pritchett and Sons.  The office technology and the costumes (and the presence of cigarettes in the workplace) place the action in the 90s at the latest.  All singing is in English; there are no surtitles.  The production is lit by Barry McDonald.   It tours Scotland from 2nd October to 22nd November and resumes in the spring with different vocalists from 3rd February to 14th March.  This report is from 7th October in the Village Hall in Gartmore, Stirlingshire.

The production opens with the Prologue from Leoncavallo’s ‘Pagliacci’, exhorting the audience not to imagine that what they will see is make-believe.  Performers are real people; the raw emotion is real. James Geidt’s powerful rich baritone as Tonio made it so.  Similarly assigning names to the other characters, based on roles covered later, Charlotte (Chloe Harris) arrives with a box of party supplies and we learn that Nedda (Ceferina Penny) is on her last day as she is taking time off to care for her sick mother, and a leaving party is planned.  Canio (Luvo Maranti) arrives and sits at his workstation.  We see that Charlotte fancies Canio but he is oblivious to this.  Nedda arrives and is thrilled that she has a leaving do.  This launches a selection from Gounod’s ‘Roméo et Juliette’, starting with Juliette’s Waltz from Act I, all about the thrill of a party (the Capulet’s Ball in the original),  Fabulous coloratura and a super cadenza from Ceferina.  We see that Tonio and Nedda are an item as they slink off for a rendezvous, observed by a curious Charlotte, who then teases them with Stéphano’s Aria from Act III (taunting which precipitates a homicidal brawl in the original).  Canio, who has missed this and is spurred to action by Nedda’s imminent departure, declares his love with Roméo’s Aria from Act II (while she’s on the phone in the back office), leading to the Balcony Scene, a glorious duet.  Nedda’s casual office romance has been replaced by the real deal, just as she’s about to leave.  They agree to keep it quiet.

Charlotte is at her desk, in a state of emotional turmoil reading letters from her separated husband (from Werther in Massenet’s opera).  Nedda (Charlotte’s sister Sophie in the original) tries to shake her mood, first by rough love and then by jollity, all to no avail. The Letter Scene from ‘Massenet’s ‘Werther’ was the most emotionally charged of the evening and Chloe delivered a moving performance that had me close to tears.  An unforgettable highlight.  The piano playing for this scene was also superb.

The first ‘Act’ concludes with more scenes from ‘Pagliacci’, a confrontation in which Nedda must choose (between her two suitors: her husband and lover in the original).  First, she sings a lovely aria in which she fantasises about being as free as the birds (lovely birdsong emulation in the piano). Then Tonio (Silvio her lover in the original) shows up early for their rendezvous and, in their duet, pleads with her not to leave him and begs her to elope with him.  At first, she insists she is now with Canio, but when Tonio pours his heart out, she relents and they are reunited.  Another passionate duet, with heart-rending singing from James and Ceferina and fabulous piano-playing from Meghan.  Just then, Canio arrives to witness her betrayal and he too pours his heart out in an intense aria.  But it is too late.  Charlotte sees his misery and is distraught. Whew.  We needed the 20 minute interval for heart rates to return to normal.  The office props were rearranged for the second ‘Act’.

The ‘party’ has begun.  Allegedly.  But there is an ‘atmosphere’ you could cut with a knife.  All four (and the pianist) are wearing party hats and the singers are playing cards.  An ingenious inclusion in the program is all 9 minutes of Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti’s ‘1959 opera ‘A Hand of Bridge’.  Two unhappy couples ostensibly play, but simultaneously soliloquise about their private preoccupations.  Charlotte obsesses over buying a hat with peacock feathers that she has seen.  Canio is still obsessed with Nedda.  Tonio is dissatisfied with his stalled career and resentful of his wealthy boss Mr Pritchett.  Nedda feels guilt for the emotional distance from her ailing mother and hopes she can build bridges before it is too late.   Then, finally, the ice breaks and they start to dance.  As the others dance in slow motion, Charlotte sings an aria from Handel’s ‘Alcina’, ‘He bewilders my affections’, referring to Canio (quite different in the original, but it works).  Another gem from Chloe – it was exquisite.  Tonio and Nedda’s dancing becomes increasingly amorous, inflaming Canio’s jealousy and worsening his temper.  Charlotte reaches out to him but he spurns her attention and takes to the bottle, followed shortly by the others as their mood sours.

Not for the first time, it falls to Viennese hedonism to lift the mood and the rest of the act is composed of extracts from ‘Die Fledermaus’. The guys (as Falke and Eisenstein) decide that they’re heading out to a club together and sing the duet ‘It’s the talk of the town’.  Just as they are about to leave, there is a delivery.  It’s Charlotte’s fancy hat, which she dons immediately.  Her spirits buoyed by the hat (not to mention the booze), she extols the pursuit of pleasure, deflecting all criticism with the motto ‘Chacun à son goût’ (Orlovsky’s aria - excellent).  Nedda reappears in disguise as a Hungarian beauty, wowing the guys, who cancel their clubbing plans with the duet ‘What a tonic! What a beauty!  Nedda sustains the illusion with Rosalinde’s Csárdás aria, ‘Songs of my Homeland’ – super, Ceferina gave it laldy.  The finale of the show was the ‘Champagne Song’ from Fledermaus, its core message being something along the lines of “everybody has forfeited the moral high ground; life is too short: sup up and have another”.  There will be no argument from me.

There was an encore which I am unable to identify.  I didn’t recognise it as anything I know by G&S, Lehár or Kálmán.  Maybe Victor Herbert, but I haven’t a scooby.  The verdict?  Opera Highlights is still a winning formula and the quality of singing, playing and stagecraft is still top-drawer.  Coming to a venue fairly near most of Scotland before and after Christmas. Highly recommended.

Photo credit: Sally Jubb