Salieri: La locandiera at Bampton Classical Opera | Review

'I don’t believe I’ve ever enjoyed the text of an opera more than the music before!'

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth, the centenary of Boulez, and the 50th anniversary of Shostakovich’s death. But there has been little to mark the bicentenary of the death of a composer who was mischaracterised as early as 1830 by Pushkin, and more pervasively by the late, great Peter Shaffer in Amadeus.

Bampton Classical Opera – a firm proponent in the revival of 18th-century opera – has decided to mark the bicentenary of Antonio Salieri’s death with a staging of his seldom-performed dramma giocoso, La locandiera (The Landlady). It proved a delightfully astute choice. Set amidst the charm of the Deanery Gardens – Bampton's home for 32 memorable years of operatic revival – the production revealed a lighter-hearted side to Salieri.

Set in a Florentine inn, the spirited landlady Mirandolina deftly navigates the affections and rivalries of her aristocratic guests, manipulating their vanity and pretensions with ease. A proud singleton, the Baron Ripafratta becomes her prime target, and soon finds himself helplessly captivated, his former disdain turning to comic desperation. Meanwhile, Mirandolina’s loyal yet jealous servant Fabrizio struggles to win her affection amid escalating chaos. La locandiera thus unfolds as a classic 18th-century comedy, rich with wit, convenient eavesdropping, romantic entanglements, and delightfully subversive social commentary – much in the way that The Marriage of Figaro caused a bit of a stir for its portrayal of clever servants ridiculing and manipulating their masters. But La locandiera was already doing that more than a decade earlier...

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