Arts & Events

In the past six years, Céline Ricci has revived for Bay Area audiences Venetian Baroque operas that were long lost or neglected before she resuscitated them. Céline Ricci’s recent Ars Minerva production of Carlo Pallavicino’s 1679 opera Messalina was, as I said in opening my review, perhaps the most wild and crazy opera I’d ever seen. And that’s saying something! Yet Ars Minerva’s founder and artistic director, Céline Ricci, who staged this production of Messalina, brought off this wild and crazy opera splendidly. Somehow, she managed to hold together all the myriad convolutions of the plot of Messalina. Moreover, she also honoured the many ways this remarkable opera makes us think about important issues that are still with us today. So in the days and weeks following my review of Messalina, which appeared in the November 21, 2021 edition of Berkeley Daily Planet, I continued to think about Pallavicino’s Messalina. Here are some of my further reflections on this remarkable opera.  

In the program notes for Pallavicino’s Messalina, Céline Ricci wrote about the Roman Empress Messalina that, “Her sexuallyliberated nature was probably as free as that of the men in power around her —accepted for them but a scandal for her.” In Ricci’s staging of the opera Messalina, we first see Aura Veruni as Messalina being stripped of her elaborate dress by her would-be lover, Caio, and engaging in a heavy petting session wearing only a skintight, fleshcoloured, faux-nude leotard with a pink, tufted pubis. Surely, this audacious scene would not likely have been allowed by the strict Venetian censors of 1679. So we assume that Ricci’s aim is not to reproduce anything like what may have been the original staging but rather to highlight elements that resonate with contemporary audiences. In an email to me, Céline Ricci wrote, “In my work I try to stay close to who the characters are and present them in a contemporary or timeless setting. I am very interested in human adventure through the centuries.”  

It seems to me that the libretto for Messalina by Francesco Maria Piccioli is worthy of comparison with those of Lorenzo da Ponte for Mozart’s operas. For example, the libretto for Mozart’s Così fan tutte, the only one not based on a prior libretto or play, is full of absurd situations and pokes sardonic fun at conventional notions of love. Likewise, the libretto by Francesco Maria Piccioli for Pallavicino’s Messalina is also full of absurd situations handled with great wit and playfulness. What I especially like about Piccioli’s librettto for Messalina is the way he builds up the ambiguities about the main character as the opera progresses. In this respect, it seems to me we have to put aside most of what we think we know of the historical Messalina. The fictional character of Messalina in this opera is very hard to figure. What does she really feel and want in her relations with her husband, the Emperor Claudius (Claudio in Italian?  

The least we can say about Messalina’s portrayal in this opera is that she wants to cajole the suspicious but gullible Claudio into believing she truly loves him and resents his infidelities and his jealousy. But does she take this position simply out of self-interest in maintaining her privileges as Empress? When she states at the end of this opera that, “Faithless men, take a lesson from women on how to love,” is she simply holding up the examples of Erginda and Floralba? Or is she also perhaps brazenly touting her own example which, at least in this opera, is that of flirting outrageously, yet somehow failing, albeit inadvertently, to go all the way in sex with others? Is this statement by Messalina just another clever and manipulative way of twisting issues back onto her philandering husband? I love the way this libretto intensifies the ambiguities right up to the very end.  

This opera is a veritable whirlwind. Unlike, say, Handel’s operas, where the scenes are very long and often tedious, with so many repeats in the da capo format, in Pallavicino’s Messalina each scene is brief and makes its point succinctly, using a creative mix of recitative and arias. The speed of this opera gives us little time to dwell on the many implausibilities in the plot. In my review of Messalina, I pointed out that it explores important issues such as rampant sexuality, marital infidelity, cross-dressing, and the nature of love itself. One could add to that list the issues of jealousy, sexual violence against women, and anger management. Regarding sexual violence, at one point Claudio declares his intention to use force to have his way with Floralba if she won’t give herself willingly. There immediately ensues a scene that seems to be an attempted rape, which occurs offstage though we hear Floralba resisting Claudio and threatening to throw herself off the palace balcony. The attempted rape is foiled, however, by the intervention of Messalina. In any case, this acknowledgment in the libretto of sexual violence against women is, alas, an issue that is very much still with us, as the Me Too movement vividly testifies.  

In addition to this disturbing acknowledgment of sexual violence against women, I did find one other scene perplexing, the scene in the women’s bath. Tullio dresses as a woman, as he says, to gain entry to the women’s bath in order to confront Messalina and try to seduce her. But we don’t see him pursuing Messalina in this scene. Moreover, both Tullio and Alindo/Erginda, dressed as women, seem implausibly to have gotten jobs as bath attendants, because we see them giving Em-Claudio a manicure. This scene fell flat for me and seemed pointless. In an email to me, Céline Ricci clarified this scene as follows. “Tullio can’t actively pursue Messalina because Emperor Claudio has also unexpectedly entered the women’s bath. At one point, Messalina angrily confronts her husband and accuses him of pursuing Floralba, which chastens Claudio and further infuriates Tullio, who already thinks his wife is having an affair with Alindo. So everybody’s plans go wrong in this scene. As for the manicure, that was my doing. The libretto just says Tullio and Alindo were present in this scene. I simply gave them something to do.”  

Thus far I’ve concentrated on how Céline Ricci staged this convoluted plot to bring out the serious issues dealt with in this opera. However, I would be remiss if i failed to say a word here in appreciation of the uniform quality of the singers. Aura Veruni was wonderful as Messalina. Her soprano has a crystal-clear quality with bell-like, clarion high notes; and her acting was superb. Deborah Rosengaus’s mezzo-soprano voice adroitly handled all the coloratura in her role as Claudio. Kindra Scharich as Alindo/Erginda used her mezzzo-soprano voice to differentiate between the male character Alindo and the female Erginda. Shawnette Sulker as Floralba had some of this opera’s most beautifully lyrical melodies and her soprano voice was lovely to hear. The male singers were also uniformly excellent. Patrick Hagen’s lyr-ic tenor as Caio was rich in tonal quality. Dramatic tenor Kevin Gino as Tullio gave an impassioned performance. Baritone Zachary Gordin as Tergisto sang elegantly in the few opportunities given him in the opera. And last but by no means least was tenor Marcus Paige as Lismeno, who both sang and acted engagingly in the role of Messalina’s witty attendant. Kudos go to Céline Ricci for putting together such a wonderful cast of singers.  

There is a scene early in Messalina where Tergisto fails to recognise Erginda when he sees her dressed as the male Alindo, Then when questioned by “Alindo” about the woman he left behind in Syria, Tergisto says, “She was good-looking but not my type.” There’s irony, of course, in this verbal exchange, but there’s also pag thos when considered from Erginda’s point of view. She asks this question disguised as “Alindo,” but she hears as Erginda the callous reply by the man she loves. Then there’s also a scene where Alindo/Erginda plots with Floralba to trick Tullio into believing the woman in veils is Messalina when in fact it’s Tullio’s own wife Floralba, who unveiling herself, chides her husband for his attempt to seduce Messalina. All these trans-g ender moments and moments of mistaken identity just add to the giddy whirlwind that makes up the plot of this wild and crazy opera.  

Another issue explored in Messalina is anger management. Tullio is depicted as a realhot-head. He jumps to con- clusions almost as quickly and arbitrarily as Otello, who gets enraged over a handkerchief. Jean-Pierre Ponnelle once called Otello “a tragedy over a kleenex.” Tulliosees his wife, Floralba, hugging “Alindo,” who is actually Erginda, Floralba’s sister, and he immediately accuses her of infidelity. Then when all his various attempts to get revenge, not just against his wife but also against “all of them,” are thwarted, Tullio flies into such impotent rage that he’s ready to kill his wife. A bit later, he realises that his wife has been faithful to him all along. So in the end he’s reunited with his wife. But Tullio’s extreme emotional trajectory clearly raises the issue of the need for anger management.  

Another extreme emotional trajectory is seen in the character of Caio. He starts out by participating in a heavy petting session with Messalina, where they both sing how ardent is their desire for each other. Later, he bemoans all the impediments that block him from having sex with Messalina. By the end of the opera, Caio renounces love as the source of so many torments, and he sings, “If we did away with love the world would be a happier place.” This seems to be an over-reaction on Caio’s part to his lack of success in bedding Messalina.  

Finally, near the end of Messalina, the Alindo/Erginda character reveals she’s actually a woman by baring her breasts. At first, from my seat in the audience, I thought the breasts looked like fake breasts. But then I couldn’t be sure, given that this role is actually sung by a female mezzo-soprano, here Kindra Scharich. Of course, theatre deals with the art of illusion. Céline Ricci confirms that the breasts were indeed fake. But Alindo’s revelation that he’s actually a woman precipitates the reuniting of Erginda and Tergisto. Further, it gives Messalina yet another opportunity to chide her husband over his jealousy, saying, in effect, ‘See how foolish is your jealousy. You were jealous of a man who is actually a woman’. Even Caio now concludes that the passions should be guided by reason. Thus, Erginda’s baring of the breasts succeeds in paving the way for this wild and crazy opera’s final scene in celebration of an improbable reconciliation among all parties after so much strife and discord.