English Touring Opera is continuing its advocacy of rare Donizetti with the UK stage premiere of an opera from the composer’s maturity, written only a couple of years after such widely admired pieces as Lucia di Lammermoor and Maria Stuarda.
Briefly mentioned in Dante, the tragic story of Pia must have been broadly familiar to medieval Italian readers. In its background are the interminable conflicts between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, in which Pia’s husband Nello is on the opposite side to her younger brother Rodrigo. Having failed to seduce Pia, Nello’s cousin Ghino maliciously convinces him that his wife is unfaithful: a secret visit from her brother Rodrigo seems to confirm the falsehood that she has taken a lover. Ghino eventually learns the whole truth and recants, but not before Nello has had his wife poisoned.
It’s a grim little tale that set Donizetti’s creative juices flowing in a taut bel canto drama in which the characters and their heightened emotional states find expression in extremely demanding vocal writing, and it is in its four central performances that ETO’s touring production scores most highly.
Elena Xanthoudakis takes on a sequence of substantial vocal challenges in the title role, in a performance that is invariably bold and accomplished. Luciano Botelho’s soft-grained tenor helps him create a credibly three-dimensional portrait of the conflicted Ghino. Grant Doyle’s furious Nello and Catherine Carby’s proudly lyrical Rodrigo are big assets, too.
Visually, the production is less happy, notably in terms of a set that is simply the reverse of another in the company’s current repertoire; the result is no more than anonymously abstract. But James Conway’s production conveys the narrative effectively, while conductor John Andrews maintains momentum throughout what is an increasingly exciting evening.
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