Abstract
Italian baritone Ambrogio Maestri is celebrated worldwide for his interpretation of Verdi’s Falstaff, a role he’s also sung to great acclaim at the Opernhaus Zürich. Now he returns in the title role of Gaetano Donizetti’s farce about the theater, Viva la mamma. The vocally- and theatrically-challenging role of the quirky artist’s mother, Mamma Agata – who brings the already-zany business of putting on a show to a full boil – fits Maestri to a T.
But why have a baritone sing the role of a mother? Swiss director Mélanie Huber and author Stephan Teuwissen found an answer to that question, and have brought Donizetti’s opera to the stage in their own way. In their interpretation, the composer, frazzled by fever and madness, also makes an appearance. Gaetano – who tends towards the dramatic, but is still a poetic and inspired dreamer – gets a junior-grade devil to grant him one last wish just before his death: a performance of his opera pastiche Sitten und Unsitten des Theaters – or, Conventions and Unconventions of the Theater. The devil decides to get in on the action, and before he knows it, he’s been saddled with the leading role of Mamma Agata. Opposite her are a smug prima donna with a pushy husband, a few second- and third-rate singers, a German tenor, and three gentlemen from the theater management who are desperately trying to keep the threads of fate, and the opera, in their hands. As one might expect, the rehearsals get completely derailed, and poor Gaetano must watch as his work devolves into a hectic devil’s kitchen.
«Opernwelt» magazine wrote that Mélanie Huber «places the performers in humorous costumes that recall Donizetti’s time, and lets them loose on each other in well-managed chaos». This marks the first operatic production by the Swiss director, which was premiered by the International Opernstudio in Winterthur. Now, this successful production heads to the main stage of the Opernhaus Zürich.