Farce at its Finest From Ars Minerva

Nikola Printz as Ermelinda (photograph by Valentina Sadiul, from the Ermelinda Web page on the Ars Minerva Web site)

Last night at the ODC Theater, Ars Minerva presented the first of three performances of the opera Ermelinda, composed by Domenico Freschi with a libretto by Francesco Maria Piccioli. The opera was given its first performance at the Teatro delle Vergini in the Villa Contarini, located in Piazzola sul Brenta, a short distance from both Venice and Padua. This was the fifth opera to be staged by Ars Minerva; and, like most of its predecessors, it was receiving its first performance since the end of the seventeenth century. (Last season’s opera, Giovanni Porta’s Ifigenia in Aulide, was composed in 1738.)

The production was staged by Ars Minerva Artistic Director and Founder Céline Ricci. The basic plot follows the familiar star-crossed lovers narrative. Those lovers are the title character (mezzo Nikola Printz) and Prince Ormondo (contralto Sara Couden), who has disguised himself as the commoner Clorindo. Ermelinda’s father Aristeo (countertenor Justin Montigne), takes her to his “suburban” villa outside Phoenicia (exotic, but in no other way related to historical Phoenicia) to hide her from her suitor.

Ermelinda has another suitor, of whom she is unaware. This is the nobleman Armidoro (mezzo Deborah Rosengaus), who, in his efforts to find Ermelinda, encounters “Clorindo” and invites him to his home. Clorindo does not realize that he is the object of desire of Ermelinda’s friend Rosaura (mezzo Kindra Scharich). All the characters arrive at Armidoro’s mansion, where Ermelinda discovers “Clorindo,” who feigns madness to disguise his true identity while getting closer to Ermelinda. As the libretto unfolds, all of the characters are ensnared in a web of farcical consequences before Aristeo finally gives in and allows Ermelinda to marry Ormondo.

In past Ars Minerva productions, Ricci has had a consistent knack for inventing a rich repertoire of comic turns for the most farcical of situations. That said, Ermelinda provided her with a platform to extend that repertoire into physical comedy at its richest and most diverse. Thus, what emerged last night was a thoroughly engaging and enjoyable hybrid of a “classical” narrative of frustrated love crossed with the pratfalls of a Marx Brothers movie. Printz, Couden, and Scharich consistently met the elaborate physical demands of Ricci’s staging; and the resulting narrative clicked along at an almost breakneck pace. (Couden was particularly adept in mastering facial expressions to account for the many dispositions of the Ormondo/Clorindo character.)

Once again, Ricci has rescued a forgotten opera from over 300 years in the past and revived it with a production that could not have been more stimulating for contemporary audiences.