The Santa Fe Opera’s L’Italiana in Algeri – a revival of a production that first appeared in 2002 – managed to keep its audience amused for nearly its full length; but beneath its barrage of jazz hands, pelvic thrusts and synchronised dance moves there seemed to be a nervousness about the opera itself, a disbelief perhaps that anyone in the twenty-first century would find a work from the nineteenth century even remotely relatable. The production responded by doubling down on sight-gags, innuendos, and anything else that might guarantee an easy laugh, and what started as an excess of exuberance soon grew wearisome. L’Italiana may not equal the sophistication and emotional depth of, say, the Mozart-DaPonte operas, but surely it deserved a treatment of greater subtlety.
The revival was directed by Shawna Lucey based on a staging by Edward…
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