Double dose of Bryn Terfel at Grange Park Opera 

Puccini wrote his opera Gianni Schicchi as the final part of a triple bill, along with two dark and intense dramas (Suor Angelica and Il Tabarro). It’s a finale offering a kind of poetic justice that upends the avaricious hopes of a wealthy man’s family. The audience can delight in the outsider who bamboozles them — Gianni Schicchi. Its plot is based on a story from Dante’s Divine Comedy, where Schicchi is condemned to hell for impersonating Buoso Donati and turning his final will into one highly favourable to Schicchi. Both Buoso and Schicchi are based on real people.

The opera begins with Buoso dying, surrounded by his family. A mad search for his will reveals that he is leaving almost everything to a local abbey, whose monks will be enabled to feast on the finest victuals for the rest of their lives. This is intolerable. The family don’t know which way to turn, but the young Rinuccio, who found the will, calls for the vulgar but resourceful Gianni Schicchi (father to his beloved, Lauretta), albeit against the wishes of the others. Schicchi reads the will and says there is nothing he can do.

It is tightly written, but no-one has seen it except those in the room, so Schicchi sees a way out: write a new will. Suitable witnesses and legal representatives are summoned, Schicchi puts on a nightshirt and cap, gets into bed, and mimics Buoso’s voice. The family have all made their demands except for the most valuable items (the mule, the house, and the mills at Signa), which they foolishly agree Schicchi should distribute as he sees fit. He warns them clearly that if they are found out, they will all suffer the punishment of losing an arm and being exiled from Florence.

In the event Schicchi tricks them in front of the officials, but no one dare say anything for fear of the consequences. It’s a delightful opera, enhanced by Bryn Terfel as the vulgar, insouciant Schicchi, arriving in motorbike clothing, sticking his gum on the side of a cupboard, and taking evident pleasure in outwitting the stuck-up family of his daughter’s fiancé. When at first he refuses to intervene and is about to leave, she appeals to him, as daughter to father, singing the famous aria O mio babbino caro. This was a glorious theatrical moment, beautifully sung by Pasquale Orchard in true operatic style, as opposed to a standard concert performance.

This Grange Park production, with its split level modern set by Jamie Vartan, made a wonderful end to an evening that started with an opera by Rachmaninov. You didn’t know Rachmaninov wrote opera? Nor did I, and on the basis of his Aleko it was not his metier. This dark tale of adultery and consequent murder, in an unconventional community living outside accepted norms of behaviour, is heavy on drama and brutality. But it lacks theatricality — even with Terfel as Aleko, and the excellent Ailish Tynan as his wife Zemfira, with Luis Gomes as her lover and Robert Winslade Anderson singing superbly as her father. Aleko shows that though Rachmaninov was a superb composer, he was no master of the theatre, unlike Puccini who brought an exquisite sense of theatre to everything he touched.

Excellent conducting by Gianluca Marciano, and fine direction of both operas by Stephen Medcalf. They are certainly in the right order. After the bleak outlook of the first, and a long dinner interval, it was a pleasure to return to the theatricality of what is arguably Puccini’s greatest one-act opera.

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