Comedy and humour at opera festival's concert night

The BoV Opera Festival is set to offer a pleasant mix of two Baroque comical pieces in the form of Cimarosa's Il Maestro di Cappella and Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona, on Sunday.

The two productions will be staged at the auditorium of the sacred Heart Convent, in St Julians at 7.30 p.m.

The direction will be in the hands of John Gauci while Chris Muscat will be the musical director, who will also conduct Mozart's A Musical Joke.

A Musical Joke, written for two horns and strings, will open the evening. Mozart wrote this piece at the same time as his opera Don Giovanni and another divertimento, Eine kleine Nachtmusik, in June 1787. This piece abounds in humour, not least the reversal of the order of the two inner movements, a blatantly clumsy fugue as well as written dissonances. Mozart was poking fun at the music conventions of the time.

This will be followed by Cimarosa's Il Maestro di Cappella composed between 1786 and 1793. This one-act, 20-minute intermezzo will see baritone Kevin Caruana in the role of the Maestro. Incidentally, this will be his debut in a main role.

The plot of this intermezzo sees the maestro entering a rehearsal room with his newly-composed piece to start a rehearsal with the orchestra. The National Orchestra will have an added task as they will be interacting with the principal character.

The third item will be another intermezzo, La Serva Padrona, by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. Originally, it formed part of a bigger opera, titled Il Prigioniero Superbo, but the popularity of this comic intermezzo overshadowed that of the bigger work.

This work is often considered as the first important opera buffa as well as a stylistic turning point from Baroque to Classical.

Soprano Maria Abela will be debuting in the main role of Serpina, bass Noel Galea will sing Uberto and Kevin Caruana will play the mute Vespone, Uberto's servant.

Directors John Gauci and Chris Muscat are no newcomers to the festival having directed last year's concert version of Henry Purcell's opera Dido And Aeneas and a concert of arias from Maltese operas at last year's edition.

For bookings call the Manoel Theatre on 2124 6389 or e-mail the theatre's booking office on bookings@teatrumanoel.com.mt.