La Scala di Seta, composed in Venice in 1812 (Rossini was 20; Tancredi and fame were a year off; Barbiere and immortality were four years down the road), shares the fortune of La Gazza Ladra: that is, until recently, the public knew the overture quite well but nothing else from the opera which, indeed, lacks the spectacular arias and hilarious ensembles that might have kept it on the boards.
As this production of Swiss television demonstrates, however, Scala is a sparkling comedy with its typical plot and familiar characters well depicted and a melodious froth that never pauses long enough to let us wonder if we haven’t seen these situations before: A girl has married to disoblige her guardian; her secret husband visits her each night by means of a “silken ladder” she lets down from her window. The guardian wishes her to marry a self-important nobleman; she fends him off by pretending to flirt with an egotistical servant; everyone misunderstands something overheard at the wrong door, and there is a happy ending with plenty of marriages to go around. At 97 minutes, it could easily play a double bill with some other short cheerful piece, such as Il Cambiale di Matrimonio or Il Signor Bruschino.
The cast here, unfamiliar to me aside from Ernesto Palacio’s suave Dorvil (Giulio’s secret husband), rampage winningly through a large, handsome wood-veneer set, something like a doll’s house, but I suspect it could all be boiled down to one room with several doors. Carmen Lavani’s rather stormy looks are tempered by a full-voiced but agile soprano for Giulia; Mario Chiappi’s woolly bass suits the bluster of her suitor, Blancas; and Roberto Coviello is especially energetic and absurd as the servant who readily misconstrues everything said to him, the better to keep the whirling plot from slowing down and falling over. Marc Andreae and the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana also deserve credit for keeping the score fresh and appealing.
John Yohalem