Synopses of this year’s operas

Violetta quits the night job and moves in with Alfredo outside Paris in bucolic bliss for a while, and what’s more, paying the bills (without Alfredo’s knowledge). It all goes downhill when Alfredo’s old dad finds out, pays a visit and asks Violetta to vacate the scene before her reputation messes up his daughter’s chances of an advantageous marriage. Violetta helpfully complies, and quickly calls her ex to squire her to a party that evening.

Weeks later, Violetta’s lungs have finally packed up and she is dying. The ex is nowhere to be seen. Alfredo, who has finally got up to speed with things, shows up. Too late! She dies.

La traviata, or ‘the fallen woman’, was Verdi’s only opera on a contemporary subject, and scandalised the authorities before it premiered in 1853. It’s based on the life of Marie Duplessis, the Parisian prostitute with whom the novelist and playwright Alexandre Dumas fell in love.

Under prompting from their maid, Despina, the sisters decide they might as well have some fun while the chaps are away gallivanting at this war lark. Within about five minutes things get out of hand and they fall in love and agree to marry the supposed Albanians. Their boyfriends then arrive home (the war would appear to have lasted less than a day), accept the girls’ somewhat embarrassed apologies, and marry them anyway, presumably in the original configurations, though this is not made entirely clear. 

The 19^th century was so outraged by these slurs on the morals of womankind that a German translation had Despina letting the girls in on the deception (despite the fact that she doesn’t recognise the boyfriends in fancy dress any more than her mistresses do).

Ariadne misses the rat Theseus who dumped her on Naxos and longs for death. A couple of mythological creatures share her pain. Up pops Zerbinetta and her gang, who try to cheer Ariadne up, without success. Zerbinetta tells Ariadne fidelity is a drag, recites a catalogue of her lovers, and tries to explain the difference between men and gods, also without success; she gives up and cops off with Harlequin.

Now who should turn up but young wine-demigod Bacchus, fresh (and smarting) from a brush with hot witch Circe, whose party trick is turning men into pigs. Ariadne takes him for the messenger of death – easy mistake to make. This get-out clause allows her to succumb to him despite her vows of fidelity to death. They head off into a cave together. Zerbinetta pops up again and says: ‘See? Told ya!’

The first version of Ariadne in 1912 combined an entire play by Molière with the opera and lasted over six hours. Don’t panic! The second version, which Investec Opera Holland Park is performing, is a lot shorter.

* The Composer is written as a male role sung by a woman, but performed at Investec Opera Holland Park as a female role.

The honest locals reckon it’s all a dreadful shame and, out of respect, don’t look at Isabeau. Folco,
who is behind with the news, sees her, and likes what he sees. However, this results in his being condemned to death.

Folco’s grandmother asks Isabeau whether she can get the sentence commuted. She can’t. She has a
chat with Folco where he gallantly says he’s happy to die having seen her naked. He gets the chop, and Isabeau kills herself too for good measure, collapsing on his body.

Mascagni is generally remembered for just one opera – his first, Cavalleria rusticana – but actually wrote more than ten, all completely different from each other and (mostly) by no means bad. He just had the misfortune to live at the same time as Puccini.