What’s the title about?

‘Schools’ were a popular theme in 17^th-18^th century comedy concerned with social mores and behaviour: famous are Molière’s L'école des femmes (The School for Wives) of 1662; Sheridan’s The School for Scandal of 1777 and Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte’s La scuola degli amanti (The School for Lovers) of 1789, better known to us as Così fan tutte.  Another significant contemporary of Salieri, the Spanish composer Martín y Soler, wrote an opera in London in 1794 (also to a text by da Ponte) entitled La scuola dei maritati (The School for Spouses); this was subsequently renamed La capricciosa corretta (performed at Bampton in 2006).  It’s worth remembering that Da Ponte originally wrote the libretto of La scuola degli amanti (Così fan tutte)  for Salieri, not Mozart, undoubtedly hoping for a successful sequel to La scuola de’ gelosi.

In Salieri’s opera, the title is specifically referenced in a scene early in Act 2 when the Count uses mythological paintings from his art collection to explain his own rather warped views about marital jealousy.

La scuola de’ gelosi is designated as a dramma giocoso – a comic drama – a description shared with Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte.

Who are the characters?

There are 7 singers and, as in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, the characters divide into three groups and social strata:

·               The toffs:

o   The Count of Bandiera (Alessandro Fisher, tenor)

o   The Countess of Bandiera (Rhiannon Llewellyn, soprano)

·               The bourgeoisie:

o   Blasio, a grain merchant (Matthew Sprange, baritone)

o   Ernestina, his wife  (Nathalie Chalkley, soprano)

o   The ‘Tenente’ (Lieutenant), Blasio’s cousin, otherwise nameless (Thomas Herford, tenor)

·               The ‘downstairs’:

o   Lumaca, Blasio’s servant (Samuel Pantcheff, baritone) 

o   Carlotta, Blasio’s maidservant, who soon switches employment to the Countess (Kate Howden, mezzo-soprano)

Who wrote the text (libretto)?

The sharply cynical Italian libretto is by Caterino Mazzolà (1745-1806).  Working in Venice (where he met Casanova), Dresden and Vienna, he was later praised by Mozart’s great collaborator Lorenzo Da Ponte as “possibly the first to know how to write a comic libretto”.  He specialised in opera buffe (comic opera), and wrote libretti for several important composers.  In 1791 he briefly replaced Da Ponte as Court Composer in Vienna, and worked with Mozart on adapting Metastasio’s libretto, La clemenza di Tito.

La scuola de’ gelosi is one of his earlier libretti, composed especially for Salieri in Venice in 1778; when it was later chosen to inaugurate the new Italian Opera at the Burgtheater in Vienna in 1783, it was revised and adapted by Da Ponte. 

As with all operas performed at Bampton, the opera has been newly translated into English – by Gilly French and Jeremy Gray – emphasising the humour and many rhymes of the original.

What’s the music like?

The style is in a general sense similar to Mozart, but in a lighter, more Italianate manner, and with less complex harmonic structures.  Like all opera of the ‘classical’ period (the later 18^th century), the music alternates conversational ‘recitativo’ with arias and ensembles which reflect on emotions and situations.  Recitative is accompanied by ‘continuo’ (at this time, harpsichord).  In the orchestral numbers, Salieri rejects the conventions established in the preceding Baroque period, especially the ‘da capo’ aria with its ABA structure, in favour of more flexible forms.  He was especially fond of ensembles for pairs or groups of singers, and so the opera opens with a trio, includes a couple of duets, a further trio, a quintet and, especially, two extended finales which involve the whole cast in differing combinations.

 The arias are mostly lively and energetic, although there is reflective music too, especially for the most serious character, the Countess: her final aria, recomposed in Vienna with new words by Da Ponte, is particularly thoughtful and lyrical.  The Act 1 trio for the Count, Countess and the Lieutenant and the brilliant Act 2 quintet depicting an uneasy games of cards played out whilst the Countess and Tenente engage in some vocal exercises are especially effective.

What happens? 

In a nutshell:

Blasio suspects Ernestina.  

the Countess loves the Count.  

the Count fancies Ernestina.   

the Count and Ernestina visit the asylum.  

the Lieutenant meddles.  

the Count gives an art lesson.  

Blasio pretends he fancies Lisetta (who never appears).  

the Countess pretends she fancies the Lieutenant. 

they all row. 

they all live happily ever after 

(perhaps….)

The title suggests that the characters – and the audience – should learn from their experiences.  Although the seven characters are well balanced in terms of vocal emphasis, the story centres on the aristocratic and bourgeois couples.  We first meet the businessman Blasio, pathologically jealous and convinced that his (in fact innocent) wife Ernestina is entertaining a whole troupe of lovers; as he is obliged to go away on a work trip, he resolves to strengthen the locks of his house to make sure that she is safely secured.  Meanwhile, the Countess – a sensitive and faithful spouse – is sinking into depression on account of her husband’s neglect and philandering.  The Count finds his wife boring simply because she is so loyal.  He believes that the wives of jealous husbands should become the object of his attentions since they are most likely to fall, and his eye has been caught by the beauty of Ernestina.  Her indignation at Blasio’s jealousy and his attempts to confine her make her susceptible to the Count’s interests, and it not long before she finds a means of escaping with him, first on a shopping trip and then, as was customary in the 18^th century, with a entertaining visit to the asylum.  Thus the Countess’ jealousy is also aroused, and with good reason, especially as the class divides of polite society are in serious danger of being transgressed.  

These various toings-and-froings are observed, aided and thwarted by the servants Lumaca and Carlotta.  The seventh character, the nameless ‘Tenente’ (Lieutenant) is an enigmatic figure.  He’s quick to dispense advice and both to encourage and dissuade the couples.  But what’s his ultimate motive?  And who are the teachers and who the pupils in this cynical school of jealousy?

The opera starts with Blasio in his nightshirt creeping around his house in the pitch dark, convinced that there is an intruder intent on an assignation with his wife…..

Is it often performed? 

La scuola de’ gelosi was first performed at the Teatro San Moisè, Venice, on 27 December 1778, and quickly became established as one of the most popular operas of its age.  In different versions and sometimes in translation it soon travelled across Europe.  An important production was one at the Court Theatre at Eszterháza, Hungary, in 1780, when Haydn added two arias of his own composition.

When it was performed at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, London on 11 March 1786, The London Post commented: “the whole together is a masterly composition and does great honour to Salieri, whose reputation must rise infinitely in the musical world, from this very pleasing specimen of his abilities.”

Our Bampton production makes use of some of the new music Salieri composed for the performances at the Burgtheater, Vienna in 1783 (opening on 22 April), when La scuola was chosen to inaugurate the new Italian opera company established by the Emperor Joseph II.  For this production Lorenzo da Ponte made revisions to the libretto.  The singers selected and brought especially from Italy included the baritone Francesco Bennuci, the Irish tenor Michael Kelly and the Anglo-Italian soprano Nancy Storace.  Mozart was so impressed with these new singers that he wrote Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan Tutte with them specifically in mind.

The Bampton production in 2017, the first in the UK since 1786, especially commemorates Nancy Storace in the bicentenary year of her death: she died on 24 August 1817 and is buried at St Mary’s, Lambeth, London.

Although neglected and almost forgotten for 200 years, La scuola de’ gelosi is now enjoying a new wave of popularity.  It was recorded by the German orchestra L’arte del monde and issued on CD in 2016; a production opened in Legnano, Italy (Salieri’s birthplace) late in 2016 and subsequently toured to Jesi and Florence.  A further new production created by the Theater an der Wien opened at the Kammeropera, Vienna in May 2017, and there will be a further new production by Opera Joven in Uruguay in the autumn.

Bampton has previously given UK premières of two other wonderful Salieri operas: Falstaff in 2003, and La grotta di Trofonio (Trofonio’s Cave) in 2015.

The Old Testament apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon tells us (1:10) that “the ear of jealousy heareth all things; and the noise of murmurings is not hid.”  There are certainly plenty of murmurings in this, the fourteenth of Salieri’s forty-odd operas, from the vividly busy overture to the shimmering but fragmented textures of the Act 1 Finale with its bizarre opening chorus for the ‘pazzi’, the spouses driven mad through jealousy.  La scuola de’ gelosi proved to be Salieri’s most popular opera and its music simmers throughout with a disturbing energy.  It seems to have succeeded on all counts, with its brilliantly varied and melodic score, engaging but untaxing to the listener, and its sharp and cynical libretto which deals cheekily with one of the most ubiquitous human vices.

Salieri completed La scuola de’ gelosi on 15 October 1778 and it was first performed at the prestigious Teatro San Moisè, Venice, on 27 December 1778.  Little seems known about the première but, as a multiplicity of scores and libretto books demonstrate, it quickly became established as one of the most popular operas of its age.  In different versions and sometimes in translation it soon travelled across Europe, with at least fifty productions presented during the next two decades.  When it was given at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, London on 11 March 1786, The London Post commented: “the whole together is a masterly composition and does great honour to Salieri, whose reputation must rise infinitely in the musical world, from this very pleasing specimen of his abilities.”

Our Bampton production mostly follows the original Venice version but makes use of some (although not all) of the new music Salieri composed for the performances at the Burgtheater, Vienna in 1783 (opening on 22 April), when La scuola was chosen to inaugurate the new Italian opera company established by that most discerning of imperial musical patrons, the Emperor Joseph II.  Salieri was a tireless editor of his own music, and was still busily reworking his scores even in his last years when his operas had ceased to be performed.  At a time when there was little sense of a definitive edition, La scuola went through more revisions than most, adapted by the composer and others to suit local conditions and singers: sometimes it was simply a matter of subtle nips and tucks, but for some performances there were wholesale alterations.  One notable example, probably unsanctioned by the composer, was a production at the Court Theatre at Eszterháza, Hungary, in 1780, when Haydn added two arias of his own composition. 

The librettist was Caterino Mazzolà (1745 - 1806), a talented Venice-based poet who became court poet at Dresden, and subsequently in 1791, albeit briefly, held the same prestigious post in Vienna, when he adapted Metastasio’s libretto of La clemenza di Tito for Mozart’s final opera.  His friend and disciple, the Italian poet Lorenzo da Ponte (1749-1838), said of him that he was “possibly the first to know how to write a comic libretto”.  His text is marked by a sharp wit and steady pacing, with a delightful interplay of conversational recitative, arias and many ensembles.  Aspects probably influenced Da Ponte when he came to write his mature libretti for Mozart, especially La nozze di Figaro: the moving Cavatina with which the Countess is first introduced in the second scene Ah, non è ver che in seno amor [‘Vainly is love misleading: does love my love employ?’] is a close equivalent to Porgi amor, and the finale of disguises, eavesdropping and ultimate reconciliation, set in a rustic spot…leading into a grove, anticipates the garden finale of Figaro.

The latter received a first Vienna performance in 1780, which probably brought it to the Emperor’s attention and encouraged him to command the far more significant 1783 production.  The work now went through an elaborate transformation: Salieri was beginning to adjust his more delicate Italianate style to the enriched orchestral and harmonic colours which were emerging in the Austrian capital.  Lorenzo da Ponte had recently arrived in Vienna with a letter of introduction to the composer from Mazzolà: “my dear friend, Salieri, these few words are brought to you by Da Ponte, a man in my highest esteem.  Do everything for him that you would do for me.”  Da Ponte was to enjoy a fruitful if uneven relationship with the composer and, if anything, it was Salieri who helped develop his brilliant talents in comedy and dramaturgy which led in time to his great trilogy for Mozart.  Da Ponte soon set to work on revisions to Mazzolà’s libretto, in particular adding the splendidly sardonic Act 1 Trio for the Count, Countess and Lieutenant, Eh via, saggia Penelope, non siate se feroce [‘Come now, my wise Penelope, no need to be ferocious’] and possibly the text for a moving new Act II aria for the Countess, Ah, sia già de’ miei sospiri [‘May my fears, my sorrow and sighing move the fates which guide and rule’].

The relationship between Da Ponte and Salieri was to lead to four complete operas, but also in 1789 to the creation of, in effect, a sequel to La scuola de’ gelosi, entitled La scuola degli amanti, ‘The School of Lovers’.  The title of this, one of Da Ponte’s only two completely original libretti, suggest that it was intended to recall the success of the earlier work.  Salieri began composing – sketches for the two opening terzetti survive – but suddenly abandoned the project.  The libretto was passed to Mozart and became known as Così fan Tutte.  There are clear structural similarities between both ‘Scuole’: in particular the figure of the Tenente (the Lieutenant), in Gelosi, who freely dispenses marriage guidance and manipulates the sparring couples, is transformed into Don Alfonso in Amanti. 

A glittering assembly of outstanding singer-actors was brought especially from Italy at the Emperor’s command to form the new Viennese Italian company, and to perform La scuola de’ gelosi  in 1783.  The baritone Francesco Benucci sang Blasio, Francesco Bussani sang the Count, the Irish tenor Michael Kelly sang Lumaca and the Anglo-Italian soprano Nancy Storace sang the Countess, a role she had already performed in Venice a few months earlier.  The Vienna-born Caterina Cavalieri sang the feisty role of Ernestina.  It was with this superb team in mind that a fair amount of the original music was adjusted or replaced.   Mozart was so impressed with these singers that he wrote firstly L’oca del Cairo (abandoned unfinished), then Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan Tutte specifically for them.  Benucci was to create the great baritone roles of Figaro, Leporello (in its Vienna premiere) and Guglielmo, and Michael Kelly played Don Curzio/Don Basilio.  Francesco Bussani, originally a tenor whose voice matured into a bass-baritone went on sing the Commendatore and Masetto in Don Giovanni and created Don Alfonso in Così fan Tutte.  Nancy Storace was still only 18 when she sang the Countess, Salieri writing a new aria in Act II Ah, sia già de’ miei sospiri; she became one of the great figures in Viennese music, performing in around twenty operas.  She took the role of Ofelia in Salieri’s La grotta di Trofonio in 1783 and then created Susanna in Figaro in 1786.  Her departure and return to England in 1787 was marked by Mozart with a new work of great tenderness, the concert aria with orchestra and piano obbligato, Ch’io mi scordi di te? 

The music is always inventive, quick-moving and apt to the emotions and situations expressed.  In a typical Venetian manner it is lightly scored, for strings, oboes, horns and bassoons, but with the wind used effectively for colour and significance.  The Lieutenant’s Act II Aria Chi vuol nella femmina trovar fedeltà [‘Demanding fidelity will not keep her home’] opens with a quasi-religious chorale accompanied by horns alone, a sure symbol of cuckoldry which the text plays against.  Most notable are the many ensembles and the two complex multi-part finales.  In addition to the added Act I Trio already mentioned, especially notable are the opening Trio and the Act II Quintet.  The stop-start pianissimo of the first Trio Zitto! Alcun sentir mi parve. [‘Quietly! I thought I heard a shuffle’] neatly illustrates Blasio’s insane tiptoeing around his house in the dark, trying to sniff out his wife’s supposed lover.  And the extraordinary Act II Quintet La rabbia mi divora [‘Rage and anger underlying’], conceived almost as a finale movement in itself, juxtaposes the rhythmic card-playing of the Count and Ernestina against the tonic sol-fa of a shared singing vocalise between the Countess and the Lieutenant.  Underpinning the complexity of the movement is Blasio, who skulks around, raging with jealousy whilst trying at the same time to feign indifference.  It is a masterly piece of comic musical writing and it is hardly surprising that it circulated widely in many separate manuscript and printed editions, suggesting that it was a popular piece for domestic amateur music-making in the late eighteenth-century.

Although neglected and almost forgotten for 200 years, La scuola de’ gelosi is now enjoying a new wave of popularity.  It was recorded by the German orchestra L’arte del monde, conducted by Werner Ehrhardt,  and issued in 2016 on CD under the Deutsche Harmonia Mundi label; a staged production directed by Italo Nunziata and conducted by Giovanni Battista Rigon opened in Legnano, Italy (Salieri’s birthplace) late in 2016 and subsequently toured to Jesi and Florence.  A further new production created by the Theater an der Wien opened at the Kammeropera, Vienna in May 2017, and there will be another by Opera Joven in Uruguay in the autumn.  There is at last new hope that that “the ear of jealousy heareth all things”.

O! beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.

[William Shakespeare, Othello]

One of the seven cardinal sins, envy (from the Latin invidia ­– looking with hostility, an ‘evil eye’) is defined by the OED as a ‘feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck’.

In 1849, the French medical writer Auguste Debay put it rather more strongly: ‘Jealousy is the most ferocious of passions; it drives mortals to all possible excesses, to madness, to suicide, to murder!  It was jealousy that placed a dagger into the hands of numerous historical figures; and today, the horrendous crimes that this passion causes are even more numerous because jealousy is all the more widespread.’ 

Is there any distinction between envy and jealousy?  Writing in Psychology Today, Dr Richard Smith argued that ‘envy is a two-person situation whereas jealousy is a three-person situation.  Envy is a reaction to lacking something.  Jealousy is a reaction to the threat of losing something (usually someone)’.

So, possession versus dispossession … what is certain is that both envy and jealousy are as pervasive in, and relevant to, literature and opera as they are to life.  From Chaucer’s The Miller’s Tale to Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, from Tess of the D’Urbervilles to The Kreutzer Sonata, from Dial M for Murder to Fatal Attraction, jealousy and its consequences have penetrated art, both high and low.

Jealousy makes good theatre.  And, whether it’s Masetto in Don Giovanni, Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande, or Lucy and Polly engaging in a vicious spat in the The Threepenny Opera’s ‘Jealousy Duet’, there’s scarcely an opera that does not give eloquent expression to the anger, grief and desperation which follow in the wake of jealous obsession.

Freud identified three ‘types’ of jealousy, normal, projected and delusional, suggesting that the origins of its ‘normal’ manifestation lie in Oedipal jealousy – our unresolved love and hate of the mother.  Derived from ‘zeal’ (zelus), which combines fervent desire with resentment, jealousy certainly brings love and hate into explosive proximity.  In Puccini’s Il tabarro, when Luigi and Giorgetta meet secretly and confess their love, terrified that her husband Michele will discover their subterfuge, her ‘folle il desidero’ is equated with his ‘folle di gelosia!’, as he threatens her with violent death should any other man touch her body.

Afflicted by suspicion or knowledge of the disloyalty of a loved one, the jealous ‘see’ infidelity and betrayal in remembered or imagined actions.  The provocations may be slight but the consequences can be fierce: degradation and humiliation, with malice and deception, vanity and violence often not far behind.

Jealousy literally makes us sick: Othello is poisoned by Iago’s chromatic hiss of venom – ‘Temete, signor, la gelosia’.   Anthony Trollope recognised this in his novel He Knew He Was Right (1869), which describes the breakdown of the protagonist, Louis Trevelyan, from the instant when his lack of trust pollutes his marriage to his dying moments, when his wife Emily begs Louis to kiss her hand to confirm that he acknowledges her constancy.  Trollope places his representation of jealousy within the contemporary medical theories of Jean Esquirol’s Des maladies mentales.  More recently, John Cordingly’s Disordered Heroes in Opera: A Psychiatric Report explores the ‘primitive sexual disease’, which may be indicative of ‘personality disorder’ in psychopathic protagonists such as Iago and Claggart.

Jealousy is more than anger or despair: it is a self-consuming obsession which ‘feeds’ on itself, through repetitive, fragmented re-enactments of treachery and vengeance.  The ‘victim’ of jealousy craves both evidence and refutation, demanding ‘ocular proof’ which will, ironically, destroy both jealousy and love.  Like an addictive drug, jealousy requires ever greater doses of itself, feasting on self-expression.  Ironically, though self-perpetuating and self-affirming, ultimately it provides no satisfaction for the afflicted, who are engulfed by narcissistic suffering and glut on self-harm and damage to others – think of Laca slashing Jenůfa’s cheek.

Opera offers countless warnings of jealousy’s corrosive malignancy.  Take Handel’s Hercules, which depicts Dejanira’s devouring distrust, when her conquering husband returns from Oechalia with the beguiling Princess Iole at his side.  Dejanira kills Hercules with a poisoned cloak and subsequently goes mad.  Then, there is Tosca – herself an opera singer – who submits to envy’s destructive lures in the very first scene of the opera: as her lover Cavaradossi works on his picture of Mary Magdalene, she urges him, ‘Paint her with dark eyes!’.

Jealousy is no stranger to comedy, though.  In Le nozze di Figaro,Susanna is jealous of a woman who turns out to be Figaro’s mother; he suspects Susanna of a liaison with the Count; the latter is enraged by thoughts of his wife’s dalliance with Cherubino, who is himself envious of Susanna’s closeness to the Countess.

Verdi’s last two operas, Otello and Falstaff, provide a neat juxtaposition of tragic and comic jealousy.  They also illuminate the way gender shapes society’s expectations and censure.  The cuckolded male may be either an object of ridicule or an injured representative of proprietorial rights, but his counterpart is more likely to be depicted as a shrew.  Moreover, the unfaithful woman’s misdemeanours are punished harshly, for assaulting male honour and pride.

Is there a ‘musical rhetoric’ of jealousy?  The da capo aria of Baroque opera seria, with its concentration on a single affekt, offers obvious opportunities for the distillation of emotion.  In Act 2 of Xerxes, the sudden dynamic changes, melodic jaggedness, urgent syncopations and tumultuous descending scales of Romilda’s ‘È gelosia quella tiranna’ convey her fury at her ‘treacherous sister’, Atalanta, and her lover Arsamene, whom she believes has been unfaithful.  However, Handel’s Ariodante, which drew on episodes from Ariosto’s Orlando furioso presents a contrast: deceived by Duke Polinesso into believing that Princess Ginevra, daughter of the King of Scotland, has betrayed him, Ariodante imagines his beloved frolicking with his rival, but his aria, ‘Scherza infida’, evokes his suicidal despair with surprising simplicity and melodic directness.

In the 19^th century, the idealisation of family life by the opera-going bourgeoisie promoted the debasing of jealous female rage as representative of a surfeit of carnal desire which would carry them dangerously close to the precipice of madness.  Norma, Carmen, Santuzza, Amneris, Eboli, Electra … the list is long of women who act on jealous impulse and set in motion inexorable tragic events.  In contrast, the resentful rampaging of those men – Edgardo, Alfredo, Don Jose, Count di Luna – who are consumed by sexual competitiveness and thwarted political ambition are ultimately redeemed by the cathartic death of the object of their passion.

Can jealousy ever have a happy ending?  We might find some answers, as ever, in Mozart.  Both Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Così fan tutte warn against mistrust and jealousy.  The moralistic canon in the second act final of Die Entführung pronounces the perils of jealousy, while at the end of Così,Ferrando and Guilelmo renounce their intent to test their lovers’ fidelity: ‘Te lo credo, gioia bella,/Ma la prova io fa non vo’’ (I believe you, my beautiful beloved, but I do not want to ask for proof).  Perhaps in Mozart’s exposure of the dangers of both romantic idealism and green-eyed suspicion, there lie lessons for us all.

Salieri has proved a rich mine for Bampton Classical Opera’s archaeological trawls through the lesser-known repertory of the 18^thcentury.  UK first performances of his Falstaff(2003) and La grotta di Trofonio(2015) have now been followed by the composer’s dramma giocoso, La scuola de’gelosi.

Written in 1778, the opera sets a libretto by Caterino Mazzol à that must surely have been in the mind of Lorenzo da Ponte when he wrote the text for Così fan tutte, with its pairs of jealous lovers, amorous entanglements and outlandish disguises.  Faux dalliances, misunderstandings and furious accusations abound, before eventually social and marital equilibrium is restored.

Sadly, a two-day deluge necessitated removal from the Bampton Deanery garden to the adjacent Church of St Mary, the narrow nave of which could not accommodate the set which would have complemented Vikki Medhurst’s plush Regency-style costumes.  One gain from the relocation was an improved acoustic.  The orchestral sound was vivid and bright and revealed just how much musical interest Salieri packs into his instrumental parts.  Under the conductor Anthony Kraus, the players nimbly conveyed the score’s excitement and the characters’ emotional confusion. Uniformly excellent diction also ensured we heard every droll rhyme of Jeremy Gray and Gilly French’s translation.

As the Count, Alessandro Fisher made a stirring entrance with a ‘catalogue’ aria describing the gallery of girls who distract him from his wife – for every girl who’s ‘calm and haughty’, ‘there is one who’s rude and naughty’.  Strewing silver roses among the ladies of the audience, Fisher displayed an appealing soft-grained tenor, expressive eyes and comic nous.  Matthew Sprange as Blasio mastered the character’s conversational style, his murmured asides trembling with rage and twisting into dark snarls. As Ernestina, Nathalie Chalkley flirted with soubrettish charm and flashed with anger at her husband’s seeming betrayal.  Rhiannon Llewellyn captured the nobility of the Countess’s slow cavatina with legato loveliness.  Samuel Pantcheff acted with bluff insouciance and sang with an elegant baritone as the servant, Lumaca; Kate Howden was his characterful counterpart, Carlotta, her rich mezzo adding warmth and fullness to the ensembles.  Thomas Herford as the Lieutenant sang with refinement tempered with mischief.

Salieri was no note-spinning hack and his score has both charm and surprising complexity. La scuola de’gelosi  was the composer’s most frequently performed opera, winning international popularity; when it reached London in 1786, the Morning Post and Daily Advertiser  declared it a ‘masterly composition, which ‘does great honour to Salieri’.  This beguiling production does full justice to the opera, with the resourcefulness and clarity that are hallmarks of Bampton Classical Opera.

On balance I would say that this is the best performance of anything I have seen anywhere this year, and at one of the best locations on our manor; both accolades earned from extremely strong fields. I’ll get round to the opera sooner or later, but the small cast was so perfect I’ve listed their names in lights. There is something so hidden and private about St John Smith Square that one feels one might be in a posh country town, a Cheltenham, a Chichester, or even a Marlborough.  Because of its intrinsic grandeur, set in a Westminster enclave, with broad pavements and generous road, St John’s Smith Square feels independent of its wider surroundings, perhaps echoing Westminster’s status as a City in its own right.  I have made no secret of my admiration either for Richard Heason generally or his regular hosting of Bampton Opera in particular, emerging as ultra-niche champions of Antonio Salieri, or of Bampton’s directors Jeremy Gray and Gilly French, and indeed their whole team.  Last year (364 days previously to be precise) they gave us Gluck’s sublime Philemon and Baucis coupled with an equally divine The Judgment of Paris by Thomas Arne, both cleverly (and economically) in airport settings, but it is the previous year’s SJSS and Bampton 2015 Salieri offering, 363 days before that (I do like the regularity), La grotta di Trofonio that has entered the rarefied ranks of those works that will haunt me for the rest of my life.  Well, to be honest the Gluck and the Arne are up there too ... www.kcwtoday. co.uk/2015/10/la-grotto-di-trofonio/     One day perhaps, there will be Salieri articles that do not scratch away in search of reasons why he went out of fashion before his death in 1825, and don’t refute the entertaining nonsense that is the play, subsequently turned film, Amadeus.  I have neither seen, nor indeed written one yet, so I’m as much to blame.  I’m old enough to have been infused with Marxist historical analysis at UEA (during a gruellingly miserable three years where I learned that reading and writing is eating while throwing up). There was no equivalent of recorded music in the early nineteenth century, and the highly expensive (and competitive) standing orchestras were funded by patrons interested in contemporary composers, obvious examples including Schubert, Beethoven, Chopin and Brahms; a fading star like Salieri was going to struggle, as did Mozart. Oh who knows and does it matter?  I’m just glad Schaffer peddled those silly old tales, and Bampton helped us understand Salieri that bit better.

Having arranged to meet ‘Plus One’ Colin in the bar at six thirty I rocked up in good time for the pre-performance talk. These are always free, and, as it takes only a little effort to arrive an hour or so early, are well worthwhile if at all possible.  I was impressed that Jeremy Gray himself took the session with an excellent talk on the varied history of La scuola de’gelosi, a most entertaining and indeed educational half an hour or so, during which he played and discussed the only surviving Haydn aria inserted into the 1783 production.  Famously that production also included an especially shipped-in English teenager called Nancy Storace, already famous, and soon to be an opera superstar for whom Mozart wrote Suzanna in The Marriage of Figaro.  Gray gave us one nugget that if you are a music snob like me you might like to cling onto: Storace (who celebrates the bicentenary of her death this year, and whose grave can be visited at St Mary’s Church, Lambeth) was half Italian and so would have pronounced her name “Store-archie”, Archie curiously enough being the name of Plus One’ Colin’s dog. 

The set was elegant and simple even by Bampton’s classical standards, with the orchestra conveniently hidden behind screens that enabled changes of scenery with folding panels. Unobtrusive but intelligent use of lighting completed the effects.  One possible negative by twenty-first century mores, the visit to the asylum (as entertainment) was glossed over delicately.  As with Trofoniothe opera was offered under the longstanding convention of the language of its audience, and the jokes right on the button: “is this true or is this fake news?”  Here Bampton will always score well.  Jeremy Gray and Gilly French have the deftest of touches; I hesitate to use the words “simple and elegant” again, but they areles mots justes, their translations being precisely that. 

La scuola de ’ gelosi seems to have enjoyed immediate and enduring appeal during the final years of the eighteenth century, arriving in London as early as 1786. Paradoxically, Bampton’s productions would appear to be the first performances in the UK since 1790.  If you missed it, I wouldn’t worry.  Salieri’s revivals have so far been modest in number, but they are increasing. La scuola de’gelosi is currently appearing as far afield as Vienna and Uruguay (in what as Gray dryly comments probably is Salieri’s South American debut) and it has been recorded for CD by the German orchestra L’arte del monde. 

The two acts are split by a natural interval, and both follow a consistent what feels like a symphonic structure with extended and most rewarding if different finales. At the end of the first act the concluding music’s high energy against the backdrop of the asylum (thus perhaps legitimising a dubious device) echoes the insanity to which jealousy is driving the participants, including the mischievous Count. 

Salieri wrote 40 operas. One a year will take me nicely to 100; a reason for living. 

In addition to fond memories of previous beguiling productions, I had two specific reasons for eagerly anticipating this annual visit by Bampton Classical Opera to St John’s Smith Square. First, it offered the chance to enjoy again the tunefulness and wit of Salieri’s dramma giocoso, La scuola de’ gelosi (The School of Jealousy), which I’d seen the company perform so stylishly at Bampton in July. 

Second, summer downpours having necessitated removal into the Church of St Mary’s, the nave of which was too small to accommodate BCO’s set, this performance at SJSS provided an opportunity to see the opera as envisaged by director/designer Jeremy Gray, in a simple staging the design of which evoked the requisite air of intrigue and affectation. Certainly, the performance which unfolded fulfilled both my cravings; and Gray’s set - exterior stone becoming luxurious damask wallpaper at the twist of a hinge or two - was beautifully composed and stylishly complemented Vikki Medhurst’s Regency-style costumes. Yet, I came away contemplating the difficulties of giving performances of a work over a time-span of a couple of months in several venues (the opera was performed at Westonbirt School in Gloucestershire in late August) that are so different in dimension, acoustic and practicability.

That’s not to suggest that Bampton’s performance offered anything less than their customary integrity, charm and slickness; just that, I was surprised just how hard it was for the company to reproduce the intimacy and immediacy that was generated inside the beautiful but fairly cramped church at Bampton - through whose roof the deluge dripped courtesy of some lead pilfering shortly before - on a wet July evening when compromise and contingency seemed to inspire a spontaneity and piquancy which was sometimes missing at SJSS.

Bampton Classical Opera have found Salieri’s operatic legacy to be a fruitful source during their forays through the lesser-known repertory of the eighteenth century. The company gave the UK premières of  Falstaff in 2003 and two years ago their production of La grotta di Trofonio was richly praised. This year they’ve resurrected an opera, written in 1778, which must have been on Lorenzo da Ponte’s radar when he penned Così fan tutte (or, La scola degli amanti, the librettist’s preferred title), with its jealous rants and rages, amorous criss-crossing, and awkward reconciliations.  La scuola de’ gelosi, with several new arias, was the work which inaugurated Emperor Joseph’s new Viennese buffo troupe in 1783. And, the casts of La scuola and Così overlapped: Francesco Benucci was Blasio in Salieri’s opera, and sang Guglielmo inCosì; Francesco Bussani followed his turn as the Count in La Scuola with Don Alfonso in Così. Nancy Storace, a Mozart favourite who created Susanna in Figaro was Salieri’s Countess.

Caterino Mazzolà’s libretto tells of marital discord and dissatisfaction, supplemented with a heavy dose of class snobbery. The grain-dealer Blasio, prone to prowling about in the dark intent on catching his wife Ernestina with a lover, is overcome with paranoid jealousy and purchases a padlock to lock her indoors. Meanwhile, Countess Bandiera pines, jilted by her philandering husband whose chief amusement is wooing the wives of jealous husbands - her indignation deepened by the fact that her husband is wooing a pleb! She disguises herself as a gypsy fortune-teller, reads her husband’s palm and, her identity disclosed, delights in his discomfort. Bourgeoisie and aristocrats mingle and madness ensues - quite literally when Blasio finds in an asylum, witnessing the fate of those whose marriages have been poisoned by mistrust. The Lieutenant advises Blasio and the Countess to get revenge by inciting their spouses’ jealousy. Accusations rile, appearances prove deceptive, apologies follow; eventually, an uneasy social and marital equilibrium is restored.

The splendid young cast revelled in the opera’s wiliness and wisdom, although the SJSS acoustic diminished the clarity of the diction, meaning that the wry rhymes of Jeremy Gray’s and Gilly French’s dry, crisp translation raised fewer laughs than they had done at Bampton. But, the obligatory topical references hit the target, as this opera about false affairs inserted some ‘fake news’. When Blasio snatched what he thought was a letter from an admirer from Ernestina’s hands, he found himself reading a newspaper report: ‘Mexico may be blockaded with a wall to stop migration … This may cause some agitation’, and he pondered ‘Is it open to discussion, Mister Trump is surely Russian?’

At Bampton, Alessandro Fisher’s ‘Casanova’ Count, had made a flamboyant entrance, festooning the ladies of the audience with silver roses as he extolled the gallery of girls whom he likes to goggle: ‘Here you see sophistication; over there is calm and haughty. In another situation, there is one who’s rude and naughty. One is serious, one mysterious; one is slim, another grimmer.’ One cannot but admire Gray and French’s adeptness with telling internal rhyme! SJSS thwarted attempts to make a similarly ingratiating impact here, but Fisher’s performance was confident and consummate: he deserved the applause which his arias kindled.

Matthew Sprange, as Blasio, had the measure of the role’s conversational style and his baritone was focused, the phrases having excellent musical and dramatic direction. Nathalie Chalkley was recovering from flu but this only marginally impinged on her vivacious portrayal of Ernestina’s sassy self-confidence and self-determination. At Bampton, I had found Rhiannon Llewellyn’s intonation occasionally less than centred and I detected a slight breathiness in the ascents; but, here she certainly assailed the top Cs in both her arias with insouciance, though again I felt that she didn’t always nail the true heart of a pitch.

I enjoyed the self-assured eye-brow raising and elegant phrasing of Samuel Pantcheff’s Lumaca (Blasio’s servant) at Bampton and have recently praised Pantcheff’s performances with The Opera Box : here, again, he stood out as a singer-actor who is never switched off, who is constantly seeking to interact with his fellow cast. The intimacy of St Mary’s heightened such interactions with Kate Howden’s Carlotta, the Countess’s maid, yet here the subtleties sometimes didn’t make the same impact; but Howden’s lovely mezzo - full of character, feeling and insight - suggests she is a singer to watch. Thomas Herford pronounced the Lieutenant’s motto of feminine fidelity (anticipating Così’s Don Alfonso?) - ‘Chi vuol nella femmina/ Trovar fedelta,/ La lasci padrona/ Di sua liberta. (He who wishes to find fidelity in a woman should allow her to remain mistress of her liberty) - with elegance, as the libretto’s sole words of dispassionate common sense were contradicted by cynical counter-voice of the ‘cuckolding’ horns.

At Bampton in July, the Orchestra of Bampton Classical Opera were placed in the South Transept and we were able to enjoy the players’ bright sound and Salieri’s noteworthy musical detail. Although in some of the busier ensembles there were a few anxious glances from the cast, seeking confirmation, conductor Anthony Kraus ran a tight ship and the proximity of the orchestral sound added to the zippiness of the performance. At SJSS, with the players of CHROMA seated behind the set and the cast relying on two monitors, the ‘pit’/stage coordination was no less consistent, but there was an understandable sense of ‘playing it safe’: there was less risk-taking in the vibrant act finales, and generally the tempos felt less urgent, the dramatic propulsion less urgent.

The School of Jealousy was the composer’s most oft-performed opera, winning international popularity; when it reached London in 1786, the  Musical Post and Daily Advertiser declared it ‘a masterly composition, which does great honour to Salieri’. Thanks are due to Bampton Classical Opera for allowing us to enjoy its charm.

Although his works are slowly being rediscovered, the neglect of Antonio Salieri for nearly two hundred years has to count as one of the greatest travesties in the history of music. It not only does a disservice to the composer himself but also to us as it means we ignore the influence of this giant, who counted Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt among his pupils, on both Mozart and the development of opera more generally. Some lesser pieces might be described as being of importance to the history of music, but not to music itself, but that maxim can hardly be applied to Salieri’s works. If one can still argue that they are ‘not as good as Mozart’s operas’ it is in many cases only by a small degree, and there are plenty of composers whose ability did not quite match that of the great Amadeus who enjoy regular exposure today.

If the three Mozart / Da Ponte masterpieces, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte, stand as some of the greatest achievements in all of opera, it should be recognised that they were still building on the accomplishments of others. One only has to hear the magician of the title in Salieri’s La grotta di Trofonio (1785) to realise where Mozart got the inspiration for the Commendatore, even if in emulating Salieri’s ideas he pushed his own music to even greater heights. Similarly, Da Ponte would probably not have been in a position to produce the three libretti that he did, had he not first been introduced to Salieri by the librettist Caterino Tommaso Mazzolà and honed his obvious skills to perfection as he produced several works for the older composer.

La scuola de’ gelosi (performed here in English as The School of Jealousy) is the third Salieri work that Bampton Classical Opera has produced, following Falstaff in 2003 and La grotta di Trofonio in 2015, and it constitutes the first performance of the piece in England since 1786. It was one of the most popular operas of its day, enjoying around fifty different productions across Europe within twenty years of its premiere in Venice in 1778. The original librettist was Mazzolà, but over the years it underwent a number of revisions and when it was extensively revised for a production in Vienna in 1783 Da Ponte reworked, and added parts to, the libretto, while Salieri created new music. Bampton’s production constitutes a hybrid between these 1778 and 1783 versions, taking the former as its starting point but including a few arias and trios that were added to create the latter. This is perfectly understandable as it would have been a shame to have excluded pieces of such value, both musically and in terms of helping us to understand what they subsequently influenced.

The plot sees the grain merchant Blasio suspect his wife Ernestina of infidelity. At the start she is entirely innocent, but her annoyance at his consequent attempts to keep her under lock and key leads her to wish to defy him and have an affair. Step forward Count Bandiera who has no interest in women without any attachment, but who takes positive delight in wooing a lady with a jealous husband. This leads to a series of comical scenes in which, for example, Blasio goes to every length imaginable not to leave his own house, and hence Ernestina and the Count alone. While this is going on, the Countess is growing increasingly angry, as much as anything by the fact that her husband should be chasing a woman of a lower class.

The shenanigans lead the characters to an asylum where they see what becomes of spouses who let jealousy gnaw away at them, and a final nighttime scene in a garden. Here, everyone is exposed and restored to their original partners, having learnt that ‘There is no more perfect pleasure than the knowledge of commitment’. The piece’s ‘philosophical’ angle prior to the ending, however, is explained in Act II when the Count and Countess introduce Blasio and Ernestina to the School of Jealousy. By using the paintings in their picture gallery as illustrations, they show how jealousy is an integral part of any love for without it there is no passion, but only security.

The sadness in this piece having been ignored for so long (although it has attracted significant interest in very recent years) derives from the gap it has left in our knowledge of opera from the period, as it clearly influenced many other works. For example, upon watching it, the similarities to Il barbiere di Siviglia feel obvious. Blasio is very much like Doctor Bartolo, a middle class character squeezed between the upper class figures who have the power to behave largely as they please and the servant class who are clever and, in many respects, seen as ‘worthy’. He attempts to keep Ernestina to himself by locking her up, which in itself has a large influence upon her desire to rebel. She in turn substitutes a love letter for a newspaper article, rather as Rosina does for a laundry list, and when she sings that she is sweet and loving until she is crossed, she ‘echoes’ the words of ‘Una voce poco fa’ written nearly forty years later.

Of course, the majority of the ideas in Il barbiere come directly from the Beaumarchais play, but it is hard to believe that Rossini (and librettist Cesare Sterbini) took no inspiration from Salieri’s creation. Indeed, the fact that we see so many similarities in all of these works is indicative of the traditional theatrical devices that had much longer histories and which all of these artists employed. Nevertheless, the sheer wealth of ideas, both thematic and musical, in La scuola that can then be found in other works places it at the centre of an entire network of connections, thus making us all the poorer if we remain ignorant of its existence. In particular, Da Ponte originally wrote the libretto of Così fan tutte for Salieri, and it seems likely that they were trying to maximise on the success of La scuola de’ gelosi by producing a ‘follow-up’ entitled La scuola degli amanti (The School of Lovers, which is now the subtitle of Così). Only after Salieri lost faith in the idea, with no more than a few sketches for two trios surviving today, did Mozart take it on.

The class system employed in La scuola, with two aristocrats, two middle class characters and two servants, was not invented by Salieri, but it is in essence replicated in Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Il barbiere di Siviglia. The way in which the Count and Countess are happy to use and abuse others of equal or lower rank for their own needs and ends feels ‘reminiscent’ of Don Giovanni. Overall, however, the Count feels like a cross between the Count in Figaro and Don Alfonso. There is a Lieutenant in La scuola who is often seen as a forerunner to the latter, but the Count also possesses some of his traits. He does have sinister intentions like Almaviva, but overall comes across as a slightly less boorish and rather more comical character. While Almaviva has a clear objective to possess Susanna, Bandiera’s aims are more nebulous as he attempts to have fun by exploiting husband’s jealousies, rather in the same way that Alfonso exploits others’ weaknesses for his own amusement.

This lack of an obvious goal for the Count, although in the context of the opera perfectly justifiable, does seem representative of a piece that overall seems less clearly defined and delineated than Mozart’s collaborations with Da Ponte. In particular, the Finale in the garden feels similar to the one in Le nozze di Figaro, but while it is slightly shorter, it still feels a little less sharp. Unlike the progression of twists and turns to be found in the scene in Figaro, here everyone is suddenly discovered and exposed in an instant. This makes the subsequent happy conclusion feel a little unfulfilling because its overturning of the work’s thesis regarding the value of jealousy within love feels clumsy and arbitrary. Nevertheless, musically Salieri’s brilliance shines through and in the scene in the asylum two trios of singers playing ‘pazzi’ (demons of the imagination) sound as if they could be an inspiration for the three Child-spirits in Die Zauberflöte.

Following the same pattern as recent years, Bampton Classical Opera brought its production, directed by Jeremy Gray and conducted by Anthony Kraus (here with the CHROMA ensemble), to Bampton in July, Westonbirt in August and St John’s, Smith Square in September. Although presented on a relatively small scale it was fully staged and the strong cast, which included Natalie Chalkley as Ernestina, Thomas Herford as the Lieutenant and Kate Howden and Samuel Pantcheff as the servants Carlotta and Lumaca, all put in suitably spirited performances. Special mention should go to Matthew Sprange whose penchant for comic timing and pleasing baritone suggested he would also make a good Doctor Bartolo, and Alessandro Fisher whose blustery swagger as Count Bandiera combined with an interesting tenor instrument. Rhiannon Llewellyn was also an excellent Countess, with her performance of ‘Ah, non è ver che in seno amor’ (a very obvious inspiration for ‘Porgi amor’) revealing her beautifully developed soprano and considerable vocal prowess.

The performance was in English with Gilly French and Jeremy Gray’s skilful translation, which included references to fake news, Donald Trump’s wall and self-improvement, helping to make the entire evening feel extremely fresh. Bampton Classical Opera is doing audiences a great service in bringing to light eighteenth century works that have hitherto been neglected, in spite of their own considerable merits and the significant contribution they can make to our understanding of pieces that are more regularly performed today.

Poor Salieri. Having paved the way for Mozart, whom he admired and encouraged, he became known as the man who killed the young genius. Salieri’s reputation for attractive, well-crafted music was swept away by the falsehood.

Bampton Classical Opera’s sprightly performance, the first in London since 1786, of The School of Jealousy, showed the debt Mozart owed his mentor. Mozart’s Così fan tutte was the sequel to this story of straying wives and jealous husbands.

Salieri’s opera is full of barbed humour, comic confusion and cod psychology. The music, lightly scored for strings, oboes, horns and bassoons, bowls along under the direction of Anthony Kraus, conducting CHROMA for this London performance.

On the tiny stage of St John’s the orchestra is hidden behind the simple set and communication between singers and conductor is remarkable considering the obstacles.

Director Jeremy Gray captures the fun and silliness of opera buffa, encouraging his young cast to ham it up in a translation that included digs at Trump, Brexit and the Mexican wall. There are inspired comic performances from Samuel Pantcheff as Lumaca, the lanky servant with a beguiling baritone and Alessandro Fisher singing the blustering Count Bandiera, while Matthew Sprange makes a sympathetic figure out of the bumbling merchant Blasio.

The women are by turns graceful and venomous: Rhiannon Llewellyn, in the role written for star soprano Nancy Storace, veer between lustrous high phrases and spitting rage, mezzo Kate Howden was a cheerful insolent maid and Nathalie Chalkley a flirtatious but faithful wife. Thomas Herford, refined and elegant as the Lieutenant, enjoys the chaos his meddling had produced.

It’s clear to see why The School of Jealousy was the most popular opera in its day.

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Having performed Salieri's La grotta di Trofonio in 2015 Bampton Classical Opera has returned to the composer this year. Jeremy Gray's production of Salieri's La scuola de' gelosi (The School of Jealousy) debuted in Bampton in July and we caught the company's London visit on 12 September 2017 at St John's Smith Square.  The cast featured Matthew Sprange as Blasio, Kate Howden as Carlotta, Samuel Pantcheff as Lumaca, Nathalie Chalkley as Ernestina, Rhiannon Llewellyn as the Countess, Alessandro Fisher as the Count and Thomas Herford as the Lieutenant. Anthony Kraus conducted Chroma.

Salieri wrote La scuola de' gelosi for the Teatro San Moise in Venice in 1778, the librettist was Caterino Mazzola. Mazzola is perhaps best known as the adapter of Metastasio's libretto for Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito, but Mazzola was also a friend of Lorenzo da Ponte and it was Mazzola who provided Da Ponte with a letter of recommendation to Salieri when Da Ponte pitched up in Vienna. With Da Ponte's help, Salieri revised La scuola de' gelosi for Vienna in 1783, when its performance launched the re-established Italian opera company. For this performance the role of the Countess was sung by Nancy Storace, who would go on to create the role of Susanna in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro.

La scuola de' gelosi seems to have been one of Salieri's most popular operas, with at least fifty productions across Europe during the first 20 years of its existence. In Vienna, Salieri and Da Ponte seem to have planned a follow up, La scuola degli amanti. Da Ponte wrote the libretto and Salieri sketched some music. But Salieri abandoned the project, and Da Ponte passed the libretto to Mozart where it became Cosi fan tutte!

The plot concerns three couples, all from different classes. 18th century comic opera used these class distinctions a lot, Goldoni and Galuppi mined this seam in their comic operas for Venice in the 1740s. So we have the aristocratic Count (Alessandro Fisher) and Countess (Rhiannon Llewellyn), the bourgeois Blasio (Matthew Sprange) and his wife Ernestina (Nathalie Chalkley), and the servants Carlotta (Kate Howden) and Lumaca (Samuel Pantcheff). There is also the Lieutenant (Thomas Herford), Blasio's cousin and the Count's friend.

Blasio is inordinately jealous, and the opera opens with him planning to go out on business and locking his wife Ernestina up. The Count is a philanderer with a fondness for the wives of jealous husbands, and he has his eye on Ernestina, to the distress of the Countess who loves her husband. The Lieutenant rather aids and abets things, stirring things up, and after a series of rather farcical situations the opera is resolved with the two couples agreeing to try again.

It is a charming piece, with engaging and interesting music. Salieri's use of ensembles was particularly notable, including two trios and a quintet all of which had an element of imaginative dramatic propulsion to them. And the two act finales were both notable, multi-sectional and very much driven by the action with the first act finale including an ensemble of confusion which was almost Rossinian.

Jeremy Gray's production in his own designs with costumes by Vikki Medhurst, set the piece in the Regency period. It was a simple but effective production, with a set which did neat double duty as Blasio's house and the Count's residence, and Cibber's sculptures for Bedlam provided the focus for the scene when the Count and Ernestina visit the asylum.

I had heard good reports of the performances in Bampton where the comedy seemed to really fizz, but the transfer to St John's Smith Square seemed to have taken a bit of the sparkle out of the production. Perhaps having orchestra and conductor Anthony Kraus (who also played the continuo) behind the scenery, forced to communicate with the singers via monitors, made the speeds a little too safe. Whatever the cause, despite admirable performances the long first act (75 minutes) did rather sag. It did not help that in the tricky St John's acoustic, the diction was a bit patchy so that you had to strain to hear the dialogue (sung in Gilly French and Jeremy Gray's translation).

But individual performances were strong, and there were some notable moments particularly in the arias and ensembles. Alessandro Fisher made a nicely bumptious Count, completely charming in his infidelity, whilst Rhiannon Llewellyn was a poignant Countess with her final accompanied recitative and aria one of the opera's strongest moments. Matthew Sprange made the jealous Blasio highly personable, whilst Nathalie Chalkley (who had been ill) was a nervous, put-upon spouse who discovered her own metier when she really does embark on a liaison with the Count (though they only get as far as shopping!). Thomas Herford was all charm as the ubiquitous Lieutenant, whose manipulation of the two couples seemed to arise out of sheer delight at interfering. The two servants, Carlotta (Kate Howden) and Lumaca (Samuel Pantcheff) were no mere cyphers and both Howden and Pantcheff succeeded in giving them real personality.

The orchestra under Anthony Kraus bubbled away nicely in Salieri's lively score, with some lovely wind playing adding colour to the proceedings.

Bampton Classical Opera play a valuable role in giving us the opportunity to hear rarely performed 18th century operas, and their espousal of Salieri shows the rich background from which Mozart's mature operas sprung. 

Full of wit, farce and playfulness, The School of Jealousy was an instant hit, becoming one of the best-loved operas in Europe within a decade of its premiere in 1778. It told a story that was immediately accessible: a jealous, bourgeois buffoon locks away his pretty wife, only to bring her to the attention of a philandering nobleman. It’s a tale of love, lust and forgiveness, scripted by the poet Caterino Mazzolà and tweaked here and there by the young Lorenzo da Ponte. Musically, it sparkles: vivacious, ironic and colourful, it shows that Salieri in his prime was already a master of the comic idiom that would become indelibly associated with a certain younger contemporary of his.

I feel rather bad bringing Mozart up so early in a post on Salieri, because the Italian composer’s great curse is that he’s permanently overshadowed by this young upstart. If people aren’t claiming that he murdered Mozart (which was already being rumoured in Salieri’s own lifetime), they’re treating him as a kind of forerunner: a John the Baptist, come to pave the way for the great event. This isn’t fair. Far from springing from the head of Zeus fully formed, Mozart must have studied Salieri’s music with the pick’n’mix avidity of a magpie. His comic overtures have the liveliness that characterises Salieri’s overture here; he adopted the tendency towards ambitious trios, quartets, quintets and choruses; and he drew on similar material for his comedies of contemporary manners.

There is actually good reason to mention Mozart in connection with The School of Jealousy, or La Scuola de’ Gelosi as it’s titled in the original Italian. The opera was so successful that da Ponte and Salieri decided to write a sequel some years later, which would be called La Scuola degli Amanti, or The School for Lovers. This didn’t come off, as Salieri lost interest or didn’t have the time to finish it, and so da Ponte ended up taking the libretto to another composer: to Mozart himself. We don’t know it as La Scuola degli Amanti nowadays, but by another name: Così fan tutte. This explains why there are some strong similarities between The School of Jealousy and Così. Both operas centre on a test of fidelity, overseen by a detached and somewhat cynical figure. In Così, the Svengali is Don Alfonso; here, in The School of Jealousy, it’s the Lieutenant, who takes on a slightly more benign role, bringing two estranged couples back together by forcing the partners to accept their deep-seated love for one another.

Blasio, a corn merchant, is convinced that his pretty wife Ernestina is harbouring a lover. Seeking to frustrate her plots, he locks her inside the house, where she laments her state to the valet Lumaca and the maid Carlotta. Carlotta is on the verge of leaving Blasio’s employment and going to work for the Countess Bandiera, a local noblewoman, but she fears that her new job won’t bring her any more normality. It’s well known that the Countess is jealously attached to her philandering husband the Count, who has a special fondness for seducing the wives of jealous men. Inevitably, his eye fixes on Ernestina, a passion made more possible by his role as Blasio’s patron. Torn between the social cachet of receiving the Count in his home, and the nobleman’s reputation as a bounder, Blasio decides to take the risk and watches in despair as his wife falls all too clearly for the Count’s charm. Blasio has to catch them in the act, to satisfy his own jealousy if nothing else. But what if there were a better way to bring his wife back to him? Fortunately, his cousin the Lieutenant (who also admires the Countess’s fortitude) has a cunning plan.

Unlike last year, I couldn’t make it down to Bampton itself, but was delighted to see that the cast, set and costumes had all come down to London for the night at Smith Square (I’d assumed it would be a concert performance and was thrilled to be proven wrong). The singing was universally strong, although Nathalie Chalkey (Ernestina) was recovering from flu and begged our indulgence as she took a couple of scenes to warm up. I’m always astonished at how good singers manage to be even when they’re ill: Chalkey’s soprano was light and clear, a lovely soubrette kind of voice, with perhaps only a very slight huskiness to show that she wasn’t completely on form. Her acting was especially good, as Ernestina vacillates between exasperation at her husband and the growing temptation of the Count’s oily advances. Vocally there was a very pleasant contrast between her and Kate Howden’s Carlotta, whose colourful mezzo shimmered with vibrato. Howden was slightly ill-served by Salieri, who doesn’t give Carlotta much of a role; I would have liked to hear more of her.

I seem to have developed a fondness for sleepy baritone servants (like Elviro), because Samuel Pantcheff’s performance as Lumaca was one of the highlights of the opera for me. Caught up in the shenanigans of his social superiors, Lumaca tries to give Blasio sensible advice but is ignored; quite reasonably, what he sees is enough to risk putting him off his own nascent relationship with Carlotta. Pantcheff not only had a powerful voice – sometimes the only one that could be clearly heard above the orchestra in its louder moments – but wonderful comic timing and an expressive face which captured all the absurdities of the plot. He also tackled some tongue-twistlingly quickfire delivery with nonchalant aplomb. He’d make a marvellous Figaro. He was usually playing off against Matthew Sprange’s fussy, possessive Blasio, another strong comic performance bolstered by a fine, musical baritone a touch higher than Pantcheff’s.

The ladykiller Count was Alessandro Fisher, who made his entrance wearing a top hat of such proportions that one could only assume this young nobleman was compensating for something. Smooth and saturnine, Fisher gave the Count convincing charisma, set off with a warm and supple tenor and an omnipresent twinkle in his eye. His fellow tenor, Thomas Herford as the Lieutenant, was a surprisingly beneficent puppet-master, aiming at resolution rather than revelation. Sometimes I felt that a touch more projection and crispness on his coloratura would have been helpful, but he did well with a role that requires a calm balance between the pairs of hysterically squabbling lovers. With my predisposition to love anything involving horns or trumpets, I particularly enjoyed his Act 2 aria Demanding fidelity will not keep her home, where horns (the eternal symbol of the cuckold) provide the opening accompaniment.

The most demanding role in the opera is that of the Countess, whom Jeremy Gray identified in his pre-performance talk as the moral centre of the piece. For all that, she’s very much a noblewoman of her time, who is less shocked by her husband’s infidelity than by the shocking news he’s walking out with a commoner. With a notorious eight-minute accompanied recitative and aria in Act II, she both has to manage the technical demands of the music, and keep the audience engaged in the plight of the character. Rhiannon Llewellyn took on the challenges of the role with flair and gave a beautifully nuanced performance, concluding her epic aria with fluttering runs of notes that showed off the flexibility of her lovely voice.

Translated by Jeremy Gray and Gilly French, the libretto was full of wit. In Act 1, Blasio is confounded when he demands that Ernestina give him what he believes (correctly) to be a love letter, only to be presented with a newspaper instead. The original Italian text for this aria is full of topical allusions for its 18th-century audience and so Gray and French had cheekily updated it, throwing in allusions to the wall on the Mexican border and (hopefully) the only reference to Donald Trump in Baroque opera. This freshness always stayed on just the right side of irreverence and showed the same creative spirit that embodied the set, where we moved between Blasio’s modest home and the Count’s palace by the expedient of unfolding screens along the wall, to change the wallpaper. Costumes and scenery were Regency, which set the action in a world familiar to us from our own Austen comedies of manners.

All was very well conceived and carried off with panache and high production values. I actually enjoyed this much more than I did the Gluck and Arne last year, perhaps because as a full-length opera I was able to get into it more easily, and I’m pleased to hear that by chance there’s also a recent recording of The School of Jealousy, so there’s no danger of this charming opera fading back into insignificance. I can’t wait to see what Bampton come up with for next year’s offering.

Over the past quarter of a century Bampton Classical Opera (BCO) has established an unrivalled record for the revival of later 18th century operas, including a number of UK first performances. Among these is Salieri’s Falstaff, today recognised as one the composer’s finest operas. For its 2017 production, given at Bampton, Westonbirt School and St John’s Smith Square, BCO turned to an earlier Salieri opera, La scuola de’ gelosi, first performed at the Teatro San Moise in Venice in 1778 and revived with some new music five years later at the Burgtheater in Vienna to inaugurate the new Italian opera company. Thereafter it became one of Salieri’s most popular operas, with performances not only throughout Italy, but also in Germany, London and St Petersburg.

A dramma giocoso  in two acts, La scuola  has a libretto by Caterino Mazzolà (later to achieve lasting fame as the adaptor of Metastasio’s La clemenza di Tito  for Mozart’s final opera) owing much to the comedies of Goldoni. Like many of them, it introduces three distinct social classes: a Count and Countess – the latter a mezzo carattere  role that includes a superb seria accompaganato  and aria ‘Or ei con Ernestina’ … ‘Ah sia già de miei sospiri’ – a merchant and his wife, and a male and female servant. The cast is completed by the Lieutenant, the Don Alfonso-like manipulator of the goings-on that form a storyline revolving around the efforts of the Count, a small-time predator like Figaro’s Almaviva rather than a Don Giovanni, to seduce the merchant Blasio’s wife, Ernestina, thus invoking the jealousy of the Countess and Blasio. The Lieutenant advises them to turn the tables and make their spouses jealous. After a series of farcical events the ploy works, the lessons learned in the ‘school of jealousy’ bring reunion and happiness to all. The richly varied score is remarkable perhaps above all for its ensembles, in particular the act 1 trio for the Countess, Count and Lieutenant, and the act 2 quintet that broke new ground in 1778 by being the largest ensemble piece to be introduced into the middle of an act. 

As is customary with BCO, the opera was given in an English translation that amused the Westonbirt audience with its introduction of such topical terms as ‘fake news’. The set design, costumes and production (by Jeremy Gray) itself were unexceptionably traditional, with folding panels that could with ease change the rooms from the rich blue of the Count’s salon to the more bourgeois surroundings of Blasio’s house. The costumes were slightly post-dated to Biedermeier (Blasio resembled an older Schubert). 

The performance in the Orangery Terrace at Westonbirt School on 28 August was my first experience of BCO. For a company that specialises in later 18th opera there were several surprising elements. The first was the use of modern instruments rather than period instruments, which I understand are used because BCO’s main performances at their home in Bampton are open air, always a problem for period strings. It did not work at Westonbirt, being not only too loud for the space but played with a lack of finesse only enhanced by the rigid four-square rhythms of Anthony Kraus’ direction. Matthew Sprange’s Blasio dominated the cast, his richly rounded and well-focussed baritone a source of pleasure throughout the evening. None of the rest of the cast came up to this level, although Nathalie Chalkley brought a lively personality if at times shrill voice to the role of Ernestina. I derived little pleasure from Rhiannon Llewellyn’s singing of the Countess, finding her tone too insecure in the upper range, though I suspect the acoustic was not very kind to her voice. The tenor parts of the Count (Alessandro Fisher) and Lieutenant (Thomas Herford) were decently sung, though the weak lower range of the latter resulted in him being frequently overpowered by the orchestra. The other major surprise, again bearing in mind this is a company specialising in this repertoire, was the lack of appoggiaturas and absence of cadential flourishes and ornamentation. It all served to give the performance a curiously old-fashioned feel. But I don’t want to end on a negative note. Although greater attention to style would make its achievements even more significant, Bampton Classical Opera is doing a sterling job in a still undervalued repertoire