Mainly Opera and Ballet
Is this little-known French farce the sort of thing Covent Garden should be doing? Whatever the answer — and audience reception on its first night was very positive — the ROH certainly did it with great verve. The production by Mariame Clément with designs by Julia Hansen is a blaze of colour and clever ideas, …
Composed for Naples in 1838, but banned because of the subject matter, it took another ten years before a production of the original was mounted in Italy, just a few months after Donizetti’s death. In the meantime Paris had taken it on as a grand opera under the title Les Martyrs, with a new text …
Ultimately based on Ben Jonson’s play The Silent Woman, the main character is an elderly bachelor who suddenly takes it into his head to find a young wife and raise a family. This is partly to disinherit his nephew, Ernesto, who refuses to marry the woman chosen for him, and the solution to this problem …
