The second work in IOpera’s “Season of Operas in English”, Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief, stands in stark contrast to the first offering, Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. There may have ben a temptation to pair Britten’s famous “ghost opera” with Menotti’s The Medium, which also concerns communicating with the dead, but the choice of a comedy worked much better.
Director Lisette Bolton has proved to be not only an outstanding soprano with a focused, magnetic presence, but also a talented director able to successfully mine the comic possibilities of Menotti’s chamber opera. Although originally performed as a radio opera in one Act in 1939, subsequent staged performances have proved popular. Last year, the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music included both The Medium and The Old Maid and the Thief in a “Melbourne Mini Opera Season” of four works, with Saskia Mascitti as Miss Todd, Nicholas Beecher as Bob, and Lisette Bolton as Laetitia. Bolton’s experience makes her well placed to think about different ways of presenting this work, and she has opted to focus on the farcical, absurd elements to exhilarating effect.
In her program notes she describes Menotti’s music as sounding “like what it depicts, like a slide whistle and thunderous timpani that accompanies a Looney Tunes character as he falls and crashes to the floor”. And there is plenty of that as Miss Todd and her feisty maid Letitia whirl around the stage, sometimes dancing and sometimes breaking into a shop to steal alcohol – an apt plug for Henkell sparkling wine there – to lure their “guest” to stay. It is a very physical production that uses the Athenæum 2 space well, even though it was sometimes difficult to manoeuvre around the orchestra spread across the stage. On the floor below, however, there was plenty of room for Bob’s bed, a small table and chairs and general mayhem.
The absurdist style of the production was established during the overture as the characters were presented, each in exaggerated form. Nick Beecher was hilarious as a gormless Bob, the beggar who becomes a real thief, trudging in with his huge guitar case in open-mouthed, wide-eyed bewilderment, in line with Bolton’s conception of an archetypal “mediocre, couch-surfing musician”. The vivid pinky-reds of the décor and flamboyant frocks of the man-starved Miss Todd and Laetitia, plus a bright yellow outfit for the small-town busybody, Miss Pinkerton, made for a vibrant array of colour. The later unveiling of Bob’s rainbow underpants added to the effect, and also raised the question as to whether Bob’s so-called “timidity” may have had an alternative explanation.
Saskia Mascitti was perhaps too young and attractive for the role, and her dancing more agile and graceful than could have been expected from someone who had lost out on love 40 years ago, but she conveyed the preening vanity of this production’s Miss Todd convincingly. Her warm, generous mezzo-soprano voice never faltered and paired extremely well with Teresa Ingrilli’s strong lyric soprano voice.
Despite the opera’s title, the role of Laetitia is arguably the central one. It is the maid who gets the guy in the end and, more importantly, has the main – and most memorable – aria: “What a curse for a woman, is a timid man” (“Steal me, sweet thief”). After Magda’s aria from The Consul, it is probably the most familiar of all of Menotti’s music. Even though the two operas are polar opposites in most respects, Ingrilli shifted the mood from comic exasperation at the beginning of Laetitia’s aria to one that aroused sympathy for her plight; her longings appeared essentially very human. Ingrilli has a beautiful voice: smooth, rich, flowing and capable of generating poignant feeling, but her greatest strength in this role was her comic flair as she dared to push the limits of the character’s absurdities. Bossy, self-regarding, playful, adventurous and not exactly moral, her Laetitia was a lot of fun.
Menotti also provided Bob with an appealing, melodic aria, “When the Air Sings of Summer”, as, fed up with doing nothing, he decides to pack his bags and move on. There is a callous edge to this character as he rejects Miss Todd’s affections, but Nick Beecher’s interpretation spoke more of carelessness than nastiness, thus avoiding too negative a twist. Beecher’s singing was accomplished, his pleasant baritone voice clear and confident. The way he sustained his characterisation was particularly creditable.
As Miss Pinkerton, Lisette Bolton led the way in terms of theatrical style and clarity of diction. Youth and beauty were transformed into a pursed-lipped, interfering nuisance who delighted in gossip and sensation. Bolton’s final grin, perfectly synchronised with the music, was the epitome of Schadenfreude – a masterstroke.
Possibly a first for him, baritone Daniel Felton undertook a non-singing role, that of the Radio Announcer. Relaxed and agile, with an upbeat, engaging manner and a cheerful American-accented style of speech, he drew us into Menotti’s story, initially sharing the stage with the orchestra and a small radio.
Much better known as one of Melbourne’s leading baritones – at least some of members of the audience had heard him as the main soloist in the Melbourne Bach Choir’s performance of Carmina Burana the previous evening – Christopher Hilliard kept a tight reign on proceedings as a skillful conductor. Under his baton the chamber orchestra and singers were well coordinated, despite the singers only being able to see him via a monitor at the back of the theatre.
IOpera is to be applauded on the success of an opera season in which directorial ingenuity and excellent performances brought a great deal of satisfaction.
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Heather Leviston reviewed “The Old Maid and the Thief” by Gian Carlo Menotti, presented as part of IOpera’s “A Season of Operas in English” at the Athenæum 2 on September 20, 2025.
