One of the consistent joys of seeing a performance by the Royal Academy of Music's opera school is that they bring in world class conductors. At last night's La vera costanza, the orchestra, conducted by Trevor Pinnock, was exceptional. The whole evening's music was played with sprightly elegance, lightness of touch and perfectly weighted changes of pace and strength as the music shifted moods between comedy, pathos and storm-laden drama. Haydn's sense of humour came through especially clearly: the music is infused with a sense of joy and fun.
La vera costanza is a light romantic comedy with a happy ending: our heroine Rosina is a common fisherwoman who has been secretly married to the tenor, Count Errico, who has abandoned her and shows signs of being, er, barking mad. The Baroness is trying to marry Rosina off to the soft-headed bass, with added interest from Rosina's brother, the Baroness's lover and the Baroness's maid. The resulting action is sufficiently batty as to defy any attempt at synopsis but is easy and pleasant enough to follow when you're seeing it on stage. It provides a suitable backdrop for the traditional set pieces of Italian opera: individual arias, duets, trios and some sparkling ensemble numbers, all kicked off by a shipwreck scene in which Haydn can display his sturm und drang abilities to great effect.
In no uncertain terms, the piece provides a vocal workout for its cast. The vocal lines go through all manner of jumps, swoops and changes of pace, and I was very much aware of how much was being demanded of young singers: diction, accent, intonation, phrasing, balance, dramatic intensity. La vera costanza is similar to Mozart operas in overall nature, but it seemed to me that the vocal lines don't fall as naturally as they do in Mozart and the singers were being required to do a whole lot more work to give their arias the desired lift.
Broadly, this was a strong cast who made a very good fist of it. Diction was excellent: although this is the first time I've seen the opera, I could get away for most of the time without reading the surtitles (although the Italian accents needed some work, with the odd estuary vowel creeping in uninvited). But everyone was well capable of producing sound that was lovely to listen to while also making something out of their character, and the ensemble numbers were in perfect balance and generated real excitement. Acting was also generally good within the limitations of the roles which are somewhat caricatured.
Credit goes to all seven singers, with the most impressive (for me) being Rosalind Coad as the Baroness. Immaculately costumed, wigged and made up to look like a Meissen porcelain figurine, she produced a light, breezy coloratura well capable of a steely edge when hitting the high notes without ever going brittle. As Rosina, Helen Bailey has a difficult role in which she is required both to be the butt of comedy and also to lift proceedings to a more serious level with a bit of genuine pathos: she made a fine effort at this without ever completely lifting me out of my seat, which Stuart Jackson did succeed in doing for Errico's aria in Act II when he is musing on whether to go back to his faithful wife.