craven.fr (.ox.ac.uk)

On Tuesday I returned to the Lille opera house to see a production of Haydn's L'infedeltà delusa. This little opera has a lot to recommend it: with only five vocal parts and a small orchestral score, and clocking in at under two hours long, it is an ideal size for smaller opera companies to stage, without seeming 'small'. (This is in contrast to Rameau's Dardanus, whose grand scale is the major thing keeping it from being better appreciated. And I don't know if I'll ever get to witness a full staging of William Tell.)

Composed of two acts, the unfolding of the plot was surprisingly excellent: what begins as a bog-standard tale of rural lovers having their lives turned upside down by the rich takes a surprising and original turn in the second act, so that the outcome of the opera is totally unlike what I had expected, and quite fun. It also gives a fascinating, versatile rôle to the soprano Vespina, who was played by a very good Claire Debono.

At the performance I saw, the role of Nennio was played by Thomas Tatzl, who was however too sick to sing his part, so he only acted on stage while his understudy Andreas Wolf sang from the orchestra pit. But it was Mari Eriksmoen as Sandrina who had me looking into the orchestra pit to try to see where that voice was coming from! Her small build and active role did not keep her from performing admirably vocally, and I only wish there was more of her character in the story so I could have heard more of her.

All in all it was a very well-put together opera, and the staging was also imaginative and well done. I was sceptical when the curtain first rose (it looked too abstract for my tastes), but the surprises that the stage revealed throughout the performance won me over, and by the second act (when the costumes got really outrageous) I was totally on board. Unfortunately I can't describe it well here, though, so I guess 'you had to be there'. (I could go on for paragraphs with vague descriptions, but none of that would make up for being there, or give a very clear picture of it all.) The pictures included in this review may help give you some idea of it, or they may only confuse you further!

In any event I enjoyed it quite a bit!