Rarely performed, this production of The Italian Girl in Algiers shows that there are benefits to being obscure; the main one is that you can get away with being much more experimental than your famous cousins without anyone tutting and saying “that’s not the way it should be done.”
Director Colin McColl takes full advantage of this freedom to set Rossini’s orientalist and chauvinistic opera buffo in the heightened primary coloured world of a South American Telenovela. Not only does this take the sting out of the more dubious sentiments on display but it puts the essential frothiness of the narrative centre stage.
The cast clearly enjoy themselves playing both the opera’s characters and their soapstar alter egos with Thomas Walker especially good at undercutting the nobility of Lindoro with his perma-tanned lens hogging. Add to this the use of green screen technology to provide tacky day-glo backgrounds for the big screen above the stage and you have as far from a “traditional” opera as you could wish for.
Das Rheingold on pogo sticks?
However, entertaining as it all is there’s probably a little too much going on. The eye is constantly diverted from stage to screen and then to an interesting piece of backstage business the consequence being that some of the subtlety and style of the performances get lost in the shuffle.
Karen Cargill in the title role fortunately suffers less than most from this and her playing as a bosomy battleship of sex and cunning is done with fine comic timing and dollops of sauce all delivered in a honeyed mezzo voice. She deserves particular praise for delivering one aria whilst piloting a Segway.
This is a brave, bold and brassy production, and that it doesn’t entirely work shouldn’t be held against it. It has huge entertainment value and unusually for a comic opera delivers real laughs. Perhaps one day we’ll get to see the big boys let their hair down – Das Rheingold on pogo sticks? – but until then we can enjoy the little guys at play.