FIRST NIGHT

Opera review: Zazà at Holland Park, W8

This rare Leoncavallo work, about a Parisian showgirl’s love affair, leaves it too late to pluck the heartstrings, and the cast is uneven
Joel Montero as Milio and Anne Sophie Duprels as Zazà in Opera Holland Park’s new production
Joel Montero as Milio and Anne Sophie Duprels as Zazà in Opera Holland Park’s new production
ROBERT WORKMAN

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★★☆☆☆
Chalk this up as an honourable failure. Opera Holland Park has a loyalty card at the all-you-can-eat buffet of rare Italian operas from the verismo years — roughly 1890-1920 — and in recent years has dug in with particular relish. And since Mascagni and Leoncavallo are so often joined at the hip in double bills of their only hits, Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci respectively, it’s even-handed of the company to follow last year’s Iris, Mascagni’s weird Japanese drama, with this 1900 tragicomedy by Leoncavallo.

It’s a strange, elusive piece. In Paris, the showgirl Zazà falls in love with one of her upper-class admirers for a dare, only to find out from her theatre chum (and still-besotted ex) Cascart that this dream man is