National Opera House (O’Reilly Theatre), Wexford, 29/10/2026.
The Wexford Festival Orchestra Ensemble, Riccardo Bisatti (conductor); Maria Barakova or Anna Brady (mezzo-soprano); Stefan Astakhov (baritone); Gurgen Baveyan (baritone); Sebastian Mach (tenor); Kelli-Ann Masterson (soprano); Carlos Natale (tenor)
Last year’s Wexford Festival Opera had featured, in the work’s 200th-anniversary, Rossini’s final opera in the Italian language, ‘Il viaggio a Reims’ (The Journey to Reims). In this WFO 75th Anniversary year, my last review covers 19-year old Rossini’s first large-scale opera, ’L'equivoco stravagante’ (The Extravagant Deception), a racy 2-act farce that got banned and disappeared from the repertoire. It was resurrected in 1968 by WFO. This is a new production, directed by Max Hoehn and conducted by Riccardo Bisatti, both making their Wexford debuts. Sets are by Darko Petrovic, costumes by Massimo Carlotto. The production is lit by Daniele Naldi. Sung in Italian with English surtitles. I caught the performance of 29th October.
Characters and casting were as follows. Gamberotto, a rich farmer, lame with gout, and with social-climbing pretensions (Russia-born German baritone Stefan Astakhov) has a bookish daughter Ernestina (Russian mezzo Maria Barakova). [And here I must pause, because again I have been caught out by how information is shared and not shared in Wexford. Looking at online pictures and comparing with my recollected mental image of what I saw, it is more likely that I saw Irish mezzo Anna Brady, who was covering the role]. She has been promised in marriage to a wealthy young fop, unencumbered with intellect, Buralicchio (Armenian baritone, Gurgen Baveyan). Penniless scholar Ermanno (Polish tenor Sebastian Mach) is in love with her and has allies in the house, in the form of Gamberotto’s wily Figaro-like manservant Frontino (Argentinian tenor Carlos Natale) and Ernestina’s maid Rosalia (Irish Soprano Kelli-Ann Masterson). He gains access to the house as a tutor, Ernestina’s intellectual equal.
Before hearing the opera, I did wonder how Gaetano Gasparri’s libretto had got it banned in 1811. I read something about the mention of desertion from the army in the libretto being regarded as too seditious. A likely story. The fact is, that if the entendre were any more double, it would be triple or quadruple. I was shocked, I tell you. Of course not, it is absolutely brilliant. A relatively mild example: “Where’s Ernestina?” – “She’s pregnant …” - “Pregnant!” - “… with anticipation to meet you”. Buralicchio’s first aria, describing the fairer sex, is a thinly disguised catalogue of varieties of orgasm. When he has given offence and is ordered by Gamberotto to kiss Ernestina’s feet, he mentions the ”fragrance” and is told “soon you will creep upwards …. to her hand”. When she first meets him: “I see Hymen holding a flaming rod”. There’s worse (or better) but you get the picture.
Despite Frontino’s clever scheming, Buralicchio being an idiot and Ermanno being clearly Ernestina’s soulmate (and “the new Plato” in her eyes), he fails to make significant progress wooing her, and Buralicchio remains in the running. Ermanno despairs. Desperate measures are called for. Frontino’s “cunning plan” (The Extravagant Deception) is to let Buralicchio “find” a forged letter that “reveals” Ernestina to be in fact Ernesto, Gamberotto’s castrato son, posing as his “daughter” to dodge conscription. The ruse works, only too well. Buralicchio loses all interest in Ernestina right enough: “When I sail into the open sea, I am afraid of hitting a hidden rock”. Ermanno and Ernestina finally get it together and Gamberotto cannot understand why Buralicchio is really not bothered and even pitying “poverino” Ermanno. But he does report her as a deserter and she is arrested. Ermanno arrives to spring her from the barracks and, after she has roused her “fellow”-soldiers to derring-do, they make their escape. And live happily ever after.
The sets and props are phenomenal. Heads of great scholars of history decorate the edge of the whole proscenium, and are also found framed by the books in Ernestina’s library. Her first aria with chorus, some chorus-members sing through the frames in place of the scholarly heads, as if the scholars themselves (her friends) were answering her questions. The exterior of her house is a bespectacled female bookworm. Even the stage curtain is adorned with a huge image in the style of a book illustration, a male reader holding up a book in front of his face, on which is painted the same studious female face. Gamberotto’s Bath chair and big boot on his swollen foot add to his arriviste curmudgeonliness. The costumes also add to the humour. There is an element of androgyny in Ernestina’s wardrobe, which a lot of “manspreading” does nothing to dispel and keeps us guessing (surely not?). Buralicchio’s foppish outfit is colourfully over-the-top and seals his impression as a “man of little intellect”. The soldiers’ uniforms are colourful with green, white and yellow, and keep the farce heightened. The movement direction too constantly serves the comedy.
The music is unmistakably Rossini and, if anything, there is more in the way of extremely fast patter numbers than in later works. With the risqué libretto, the opera is a delightful romp from start to finish. Very securely in my ‘BBB’ designation: “Bonkers But Brilliant”.
With the WFO plan that each year’s three mainstage operas should include “one for the head, one for the heart, and one for fun”, this year ‘The Gambler’ was for the head, and ‘Iris’ was for the heart. This production of ‘L'equivoco stravagante’ brings more joy into the world, so it is definitely “one for fun”. Full marks from me.
Weblink: https://www.wexfordopera.com/programme/festival-programme/lequivoco-stravagante
https://www.youtube.com/live/WM4_dhXBRcQ (turn off automatic captions)