Identifying with the Italian Girl

The Italian Girl in Algiers. Photo / Neil Mackenzie

New Zealand mezzo Wendy Dawn Thompson, playing the title role in NBR New Zealand Opera's production of Rossini's The Italian Girl in Algiers, is based in London these days, the city where, six years ago, she won the prestigious Kathleen Ferrier Award.

"At the time it was huge," she says. "It was quite surreal to be ringing New Zealand, saying I had won this competition that is the zenith of what you could have in Britain, while I was going home on the bus. You can win these things, but life goes on."

Unlike a good half of the dozen hopefuls who studied alongside her in the Benjamin Britten International Opera School a few years ago, Thompson is sustaining a career as a fully professional singer. She has appeared with Opera Australia, English National Opera and at Covent Garden, where she took part in the premiere of Harrison Birtwistle's new opera The Minotaur.

"The role had actual screaming in it. I spent a lot of time trying to determine what kind of scream Harry wanted. In the end I got the blood-curdler he wanted, although it took me the full five weeks to work out exactly what was going to work for me. I've always thrived on challenge," she laughs. "And, in many ways, the more difficult it is, the easier I find it."

Rossini's The Italian Girl in Algiers was one such challenge. "I'd always read that this was wonderful music but I'd never connected with it personally. I always found it quite vapid and wasn't sure when I was offered the part of Isabella whether it was going to be me."

Now Thompson is a convert. She has studied the role with English mezzo Della Jones who "shared the secrets of the many times she'd done it" and sighs in admiration when I bring up Marilyn Horne's performance in the DVD of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's 1986 production. But, for this mezzo, Rossini's heroine is "quite the Kiwi girl".

"She knows what she wants and isn't afraid to demand it," Thompson stresses. "It's no issue for Kiwi girls to change a tire on a car and that's how I see Isabella. If something needs to be done, she just gets on and does it."

Although there is no tire-changing in Colin McColl's flamboyant take on the opera, this Isabella does have to ride a scooter while dispensing Rossini's coloratura. Thompson explains how McColl has envisaged Rossini's opera as an on-screen/off-screen Latino soap opera which is "totally crazy and over-the-top". A new challenge is singing both for the audience and for the television camera.

"Because the camera's a magnifying glass, the bigger your performance the more ridiculous you seem," she says. "We had to plough a middle line."

Thompson enjoys the teamwork of it all. She has only three arias - the rest is ensemble work with Conal Coad's Mustafa, Christian Baumgartel's Lindoro and Warwick Fyfe's Taddeo.

"As a singer I've always enjoyed it more when I'm working with other people than just by myself. We spend so many hours alone learning our parts but it's not until we get together that the show comes to life."

If reviews from the Wellington season are anything to go by, this Italian Girl has done so in the brightest of technicolour.

According to the Dominion Post, Thompson looks dazzling and is fully capable of wowing Mustafa.

While such plaudits are cheering, this production brings with it deeper rewards for Wendy Dawn Thompson.

"NBR New Zealand Opera has always looked after me, ever since I was an emerging artist. Coming back has demonstrated how much I love being here."

The story of a feisty heroine

Rossini's The Barber of Seville is generally acknowledged as a masterpiece in the field of opera buffa and his The Italian Girl in Algiers, written three years earlier, is not far behind.

When Italian Girl first took the stage in Venice in 1813 it aroused what was described as "deafening, continuous applause" and the Venetians must have been amused by its tale of a wily Italiana outwitting dastardly Arabs.

Isabella is the sort of feisty heroine who, in her first aria, shipwrecked on the shores of North Africa, stops her lamenting to announce she will single-handedly rescue her captured lover, Lindoro. If this had been a Hollywood flick with Angelina Jolie, she might have had every piece of armament the props department could muster. Isabella's weapons are purely musical.

She achieves her goals through a string of confrontations, none more hilarious than when she tempts her would-be seducer with membership of an exclusive society devoted to eating, drinking and sleeping. Which is more or less what Rossini himself devoted himself to when he retired at 37.

The good news is we are not keeping Colin McColl's production to ourselves - in October, it will be mounted in Edinburgh by Scottish Opera. The better news is only New Zealand has the chance to experience what promises to be a star turn by Conal Coad as Mustafa, the Bey of Algiers.

Performance

What: The Italian Girl in Algiers.
Where and when: Aotea Centre, Thursday May 28, 7.30pm, and May 30, June 4 & 6, 7.30pm; June 2, 6.30pm.