Buried rags to riches tale gets spectacular treatment by Pinchgut Opera

Pinchgut Opera unearth a long buried 350-year-old rags to riches tale for its latest spectacular production

Pinchgut Opera has unearthed an old neglected masterpiece, Giovanni Legrenzi's Giustino. Picture: Cassandra Hannagan

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Around 350 years ago Giovanni Legrenzi was a household name in Italian operatic circles – the Verdi or Puccini of his day.

His opera Giustino was a resounding success in his home town of Venice when it was staged in 1683, being regularly performed throughout Italy for another 50 years, and his influence on the musical greats to follow, including Handel, Vivaldi and J.S. Bach, was huge. Then, like so many other composers of that era, he fell out of fashion and was consigned to relative obscurity, being known today mainly for his sacred and instrumental works.

But then in the early 2000s some musical archaeologists unearthed a partial score and Giustino, with its 70 arias and vivid fast-moving action, rose like a phoenix at a German festival.

Now Pinchgut Opera’s artistic director Erin Helyard has edited, adapted, cut and completed a score and, for five performances, has included it in the company’s current season. It’s a lavish production, boasting no less than three counter tenors, two sopranos, two tenors and a bass, along with four non-singers who act as dancers, scene shifters and puppeteers. The action moves thick and fast, with love stories, betrayals, battles royal and the odd coronation thrown in, and is (very) broadly based on Justinian the Great’s rise from a peasant farmer to Byzantine Roman emperor in the sixth century. Along the way he kills a fierce bear, rides an elephant into war and grapples with a sea monster.

Lauren Lodge-Campbell and Nicholas Tamagna share a moment in Pinchgut’s production of Giovanni Legrenzi's Giustino. Picture: Cassandra Hannagan

Exciting counter tenor Nicholas Tamagna, making his Pinchgut debut, was superb in the title role, his voice sweet and gentle in the showstopping love duet with British-Australian soprano Lauren Lodge-Campbell as the princess Eufemia, and powerful with a menacing cutting edge in the battle scenes.

The other two counter tenors – Englishman Owen Willetts as Giustino’s captor Vitaliano and popular local singer Russell Harcourt as his unscrupulous would-be rapist brother Andronico – were also truly impressive.

Also making her Pinchgut debut was New Zealand soprano Madeleine Pierard in the key role of Arianna, widow of the emperor and now wife of Anastasio (tenor Jacob Lawrence). Her rich soprano and fine acting skills were a feature, and she played well off Lodge-Campbell’s fresh lyricism.

Pinchgut favourite and Taryn Fiebig Scholar Chloe Lankshear was radiant as Fortuna, the spirit who observes and helps to shape events. There was also a nice Don Giovanni Commandatore moment when bass Andrew O’Connor appears as the ghost of Vitaliano’s father.

Helyard, with his stripped back band of eight players boosted by Matthew Manchester’s trumpet, kept the show moving apace, alternating between chamber organ and harpsichord, and there were some lovely instrumental passages, including a fugue at the opening of the second half, a dramatic bear hunt and, of course, a cracking battle scene in which the cast pull off an effective slow-mo sequence.

The production team of director Dean Bryant, set designer Jeremy Allen and costume designer Melanie Liertz – along with Damien Cooper’s lighting and movement supervisor Shannon Burns – are as much the stars of the show as the singers and musicians, creating an entertaining spectacle in the opera-unfriendly setting of the City Recital Hall.

DETAILS

• OPERA Pinchgut Opera: Giustino by Giovanni Legrenzi

• WHERE City Recital Hall

• WHEN Tuesday, May 30