Guildhall Questions: Stephen Medcalf answers

The triple bill features a trio of darkly comic Italian operas – Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di Susanna (Susanna’s Secret); Mascagni’s Zanetto and Donizetti’s Rita – explore troubling romantic relationships and escapist fantasies in the interwoven lives of three Florentine women. Lyrical and tuneful music features throughout these skilfully written, one-act works, which were composed between 1841 and 1909.

In this interview, Stephen Medcalf talks about how he's reimagined these challenging and thought-provoking stories for the present day.

Could you tell us about the three operas, in a nutshell?

They are three very different works. The first, Susanna’s Secret, is a rather brilliant parody by Wolf-Ferrari of operas about jealous husbands and faithful resilient wives in the Italian tradition, with more than a nod to Verdi’s Falstaff. It’s a sparkling comedy written at the turn of the century, but very much encapsulating the world of Italian opera buffa.

The second piece, Zanetto, is a melancholy romance of unrequitable love by Mascagni. Far away from the kind of opera verismo style of his best-known Cavalleria rusticana, it’s something much more thoughtful and rather touching, with a tragic undertone.

The third piece – Donizetti’s Rita ­– was originally written in 1841, much earlier than the other two operas. But it was not performed often at all, until it was rediscovered in the 1860s and changed from French to Italian form. It is a fascinating piece in the sense that it deals with the uncomfortable subject of domestic abuse, but looking at it from an 1840s point of view.

Fundamentally, what ties them together is that all three operas deal with women fantasising about escaping from controlling relationships. I guess what we point to in this triple bill is the fact that it’s actually very hard, if not impossible, to do so.

How have you translated these stories for the present day?

In Donizetti’s opera, I think it’s important to make it very clear that Rita’s extraordinary behaviour is driven by the long and damaging experience of being beaten by her first husband. It’s kind of her means of escape and of rediscovering herself: her way of surviving is to turn the violence on to her new husband. So by treating that with psychological verity (and I think the piece has it anyway, because Donizetti was such a humanist) you make it a genuinely interesting piece, and an acceptable story for now.

It seems to me pretty clear that what is intended by Rita is a lot of empathy with women who are abused by their husbands. So in a weird way – and a difficult way for a modern audience – it’s sort of a celebration of a woman standing up for herself. An audience of the 1840s would have found natural humour in the idea of a wife beating her submissive husband, which we now find shocking. But at the time it would have been a liberal view, in a sense, that a woman could fight back.

In the first opera, Susanna’s secret (I don’t think it’s a secret to anybody, and certainly won’t be if they read this article!) is that she smokes. And of course her husband thinks that the secret is that she has a lover. To make sense of it in a contemporary situation, what she smokes in this production is somewhat stronger, perhaps, than what might have been intended by the first authors.

I think the Mascagni updates very comfortably in the sense that there are many women who earn their living as escorts, who suffer a great deal at the hands of men, and perhaps fantasise about the perfect relationship with an innocent young man. Of course Sylvia’s great dilemma is that she doesn’t feel worthy of this man, and on the contrary feels that her own corrupt nature will destroy the innocent young love that she craves.

The whole notion of updating these stories is also very much driven by COVID in a purely practical sense – we had to buy costumes online as we couldn’t hire them, and that was a driving force behind contemporising the stories. But actually one might well have done so anyway, because they work so well in contemporary clothing.

How have you approached this production, what ideas/inspirations did you have in mind?

Fantasies and dreams – very close together in many ways – tie together the three operas. What set us off was the Mascagni, because there are so many dreams within this centrepiece. Sylvia seems to dream of this young man that she may have glanced at once in a street, who’s remembered her and who, somewhere in Florence, is also dreaming of that moment. Then of course this dream seems to come true.

I suppose that we’ve expanded that theme of dreams to the other two operas. The set for all three works is, in essence, a bed, and the bed is torn in half – which is obviously emblematic of dreams and relationships that go wrong.

You’ve directed dozens of operas in your career, but this is your first staged production created during a pandemic. What impact has COVID had on the process?

The entire production is being directed to be COVID safe. The set had to be very simple, the singers are always two metres apart and usually facing away from each other, and often we use things like sheets to act as barriers. Nobody passes anything directly to anybody, and there’s continuous sanitising of props – all singers have their own props and costumes, nothing’s shared. So it’s been a real challenge, but an interesting challenge. To do a piece that’s essentially about sex and violence, without the cast ever touching each other, has been fascinating!

The only thing that’s missing from this jigsaw is our live audience – we all miss that. But we’ll do our very best to communicate the essence of the production online. In the end, my job is to give the students a learning experience, and I do believe we’ve done that as well as ever, even with the restrictions. I don’t think it’s stopped us providing the singers with the whole experience of performing, developing a character and so on, which is so vital.

Has using technology to enable social distancing brought any new opportunities or learnings?

I had two weeks of isolation in the middle of the rehearsal period, during which time I directed online. I don’t think it was wildly efficient, but I do think we managed to get 80% as much done as if I’d been there live in the room.

What you miss is the signals and the understanding – a singer only has to give you a look, in person, for you to know that they’ve understood what you’re trying to communicate. But it’s surprising that when you’re online, looking at a big screen, you have to say quite often “hello? Is that clear? do you understand?”. And when they say something quietly you have to ask for confirmation: “Give me a big thumbs up, smile, show me that you’ve got it!”.

But what was good for me is that I tend to demonstrate what I want, and I couldn’t do that, really ­(I occasionally tried online, but it was hopeless!). So I had to describe it entirely in words, which was rather an interesting discipline to learn.

Also I think there’s something about the tension of nobody being able to get near each other in an opera about love and sex which kind of, ironically, draws attention to its power. The very absence of it draws attention to the significance of it.

What are you most enjoying about working with Guildhall singers, instrumentalists and production artists?

The pleasure is their openness, their innocence, their preparedness to work, their talent, their enthusiasm. Good directors are teachers, and the sense that you’re doing more than just working for an end result – you’re helping people develop – is hugely satisfying.

But in many other respects it is just like doing a professional show, because the students here on the opera course at Guildhall are some of the best in the world, and you do get to work with singers who are extremely gifted and will go on to have great careers.

Who have been some of your biggest inspirations in your career?

The great Sir Peter Hall, director of the National Theatre for many years and founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company. My first experience was at Glyndebourne where I was his assistant, and I learnt a great amount from him about opera. And Peter Sellars – a very different kind of influence, the American wunderkind (well, no longer a ‘kind’! But still a wunder) who I also assisted at Glyndebourne. He’s a genius. I could never direct like him, but he taught me a huge amount about singers and the art of performance.

I get great inspiration from working with wonderful conductors like Sir Charles Mackerras, Bernard Haitink, Lorin Maazel, Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Andrew Davis – there’s something about being with these people who are really connected with the music that you just have to be inspired by. Dominic Wheeler is a fantastic conductor and educationalist, he works wonderfully with the students and it’s genuinely always a huge pleasure to work with him.

What would be your top tips for young opera singers?

First of all, you have to have an incredible lot of courage and determination. Secondly, you have to work extremely hard, prepare everything and be thoroughly immersed in your art and your art form. And apart from that, you have to have self-belief. Never give up!

The Opera Triple Bill will be livestreamed via Guildhall School's website on Monday 2, Wednesday 4, Friday 6 and Monday 9 November 2020 at 7pm.