Harlequin at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in Olavinlinna, the 29th of July, 2022

My second visit this summer to the Savonlinna Opera Festival was a visiting co-production by Opera and Italian Drama of the Croatian National Theatre in Rijekan and the Croatian National Theatre in Osijek. They performed Ferrucio Busoni’s Arlecchino (Harlequin). I had never before seen any operas from Busoni, so I was really interested in seeing it.

The story of the opera was pretty silly. The simplified version goes as follows: Harlequin has an affair with Matteo’s wife Annunziata. He tells Matteo that barbarians have attacked the country and Matteo goes to war against his will. Harlequin has made a copy of Matteo’s home key and is about to enter the house, when his wife Colombina enters the scene. However, he manages to disappear in the middle of her lamenting, but Leandro, who arrives after his departure is much more compassionate to Colombina’s sufferings. When Harlequin re-enters, he manages to lure Colombina away and then kills Leandro in a duel. But, of course, Leandro recovers and Leandro and Colombina become a pair, just like Harlequin and Annunziata. Matteo, who returns from the front, waits in vain for his wife to come home.  

This opera is supposed to contain a lot of parody about operas, but either I do not know enough about operas, the parody was not funny or the director Marin Blažević had done absolutely nothing to clarify the story, since the whole performance was a mess, which did not make any positive impression on me. The music was not very memorable, and the performers were average. And when Serena Ferraiulo and Giulio Settimo, who had spoken roles, most of the time just hassled on the stage, I ended up checking my watch every two minutes, which is rather good taking into account that the whole opera is only about an hour long. Actually, I would say that the greatest plus of the opera was that it was a new opera to me. But I do have to admit that I did like the costume design by Sandra Dekanić, where right half of the costume was different from the left hand of the costume.