Review of Smyth’s Der Wald and Respighi’s Lucrezia – Wagner’s spirit graces the double bill | Opera

AAs the near-capacity audience settled down and the orchestra members warmed up before the Guildhall School’s latest double bill of operatic rarities, a familiar tune emerged from the pit: a tuba winding its way through Wagner’s Valkyrie Journey. Talk about setting the tone. Ethel Smith’s Der Wald (premiered in Berlin in 1902) and Ortorino Respighi’s Lucrezia – which premiered in 1937 although this was its UK premiere – would be new to most Silk Street theatre. However, it is possible that both pieces were graffitied with the word “RW woz’re”, such is Wagner’s influence on their musical language.

Der Wald veers into full fandom. This is a dark romantic forest inhabited by innocent lovers. There is a dramatic soprano wreaking social havoc. “Todd and Libby” – Death and Love – sings the innocent female at the end in her miniature Liebestod. In Stephen Barlow’s production, the lighting is set to ‘grim’ and the action is set in 1950s North America, with forest dwellers dressed in denim and plaid while Iolanthe, a pseudo-Valkyrie, arrives on a motorbike.

The cast was clearly having fun. The chorus and smaller roles were an energetic, lively presence, Sonny Fielding’s turn as a peddler and Redmond Sanders’ turn as local landowner Rudolph (here a full-mouthed, trousers-on cowboy) particularly convincing. Avery Lafrentz maneuvered the massive, hard-edged soprano effectively as Iolanthe, Harry Jacques Heinrich was warm and sympathetic, and Seohyun Go was excellent as his fiancée Röschen, her tone generous and carefully controlled. If the emotional climax of the opera’s love duet felt particularly heated when Rushen took off her wool jacket, it was partly due to the orchestra conducted by Dominique Wheeler. The lush string tone of the overture never returned, and despite some woodwind solos, the playing lacked the polish and breadth needed to make this a truly compelling opera.

The orchestra fared better in Respighi’s Lucrezia, where Wagner lurks behind the Puccini and Strauss candidates in a score that embraces the extremes of cruelty and beauty. There were moments of palpable earthiness from the cello and bass, and terrifying, frenetic activity in the woodwinds and massive brass panels, while the strings pulled slow, shocked movements as the heroine (better known to operatics via Britten and to classicists via Livy and Ovid) recounted how she had been raped.

Barlow’s show depicts the always shocking intrigue of a modern American courtroom, where the men wear suits and sandals, and the women wear toga-like dresses. Gabriella Giulietta Noble showed a talent for storytelling as La Voce (here a black-suited legal professional offering periodic commentary), while Manon Ogwen Parry’s Venilia and Hannah McKay’s Lucrezia stood out from the impressive cast in their assured dramatic and vocal intensity. It was a powerful argument for a work we should know better.