Florentine Opera's 'Viva la Mamma!' is the production where everything goes hilariously
As stage director Jill Anna Ponasik describes it, "Viva la Mamma!" sounds like the kind of office comedy many of us have enjoyed watching — or not enjoyed being part of.
"You've got a group of 11 people supposedly trying to make this production together, but they're all working at cross-purposes, and everyone's ambition is interfering with someone else's ambition, and so they continuously undermine each other, sometimes on purpose and often (by) accident," she said.
Sounds like we've been to some of the same staff meetings!
Milwaukee's Florentine Opera performs Donizetti's comic opera March 21 and 23.
"Viva la Mamma!" is to opera what "Noises Off" or "The Play That Goes Wrong" are to theater. A podunk opera company is rehearsing a world-premiere production, but everything is falling apart: The prima donna is acting up, another singer can't the arias right. Then Agata, the stage mother of all stage mothers, shows up, demanding an aria for her daughter, the second soprano, and taking over everything.
What makes this even more fun is that the role of Mamma Agata is sung by a male bass-baritone. In the Florentine's production, that will be Metropolitan Opera veteran Patrick Carfizzi.
While "Viva La Mamma!" traffics in opera stereotypes, its humor comes down to elemental human foibles and people making great efforts to no avail, Ponasik said. As she worked on visualizing the production, she made herself an inspirational collage from similar shows, including "Noises Off," "Waiting for Guffman," "The Play That Goes Wrong," "Slings and Arrows" — even "The Muppet Show." There are characters like Kermit and Miss Piggy in "Viva la Mamma!," she said.
Piecing it together from scraps
Florentine Opera CEO Maggey Oplinger's pitch to Ponasik to direct "Viva la Mamma!" was an unusual one. Are you interested in what is certain to be a really difficult project?, Ponasik remembers her asking. (Oplinger confirmed that in a text message.)
"It exists in scraps," Ponasik said of "Viva la Mamma!," which premiered in its two-act form in 1831. There is neither a definitive score nor a baseline recording, just a bunch of ad hoc versions created individually. There are even two different common endings. "It's like dumping out a Lego collection and not having any instructions," she said.
"It's a dramaturgical mess."
She had to create an English libretto so the production designers could learn the show. Professing only "second-grade Italian" herself, she pulled in a friend from Brown University to help. As they pieced everything together, Ponasik realized that some confusing things were baked-in accents, such as Agata's Neapolitan accent or a tenor's German-accented Italian.
Imitating instruments with his voice
"Viva la Mamma!" will be preceded by a curtain-raiser that's another comic piece about putting on a production: Domenico Cimarosa's "Il Maestro di Cappella." In this one-act, about 20 minutes long, Carfizzi will sing the role of a conductor leading a rehearsal. Frustrated at not getting the sound he wants, he imitates the sounds of the different instruments with his voice.
Singing both Agata and the conductor, the program is a heavy lift for Carfizzi, Ponasik said. She's impressed with what Carfizzi brings to performing: "He's so open-hearted, and he's so imaginative, and his body is so free as he uses it onstage."
This program is also in a different location for the Florentine: Alverno College's Pitman Theater. It's a fully functioning theatrical space capacious enough for the big chamber ensemble for this production, Ponasik said.
The Pitman also has a lived-in vibe that suits the regional opera company of "Viva la Mamma!," she noted.
An opera for babies, for real
After "Viva la Mamma!," Ponasik will turn to the next production by Milwaukee Opera Theatre, the company she leads as producing artistic director. It's "Camille's Rainbow," an immersive 45-minute opera for babies and toddlers performed by four singers and a harpist.
The kids, their adults and the singers all sit on the floor together around a large circle rug; the babies are free to wonder. The songs, in several languages and gibberish, are about colors and how Camille misses hers. Co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall and Minnesota Opera, "Camille's Rainbow" has been a hit at Carnegie.
For the production here, MOT has hired mostly singers who have babies, so they're bringing their own. It will be performed May 21-June 1 at a location to be announced later.
If you go
Florentine Opera performs "Viva la Mamma!" at 7:30 p.m. March 21 and 2:30 p.m. March 23 at Alverno College's Pitman Theater, 3431 S. 39th St. It will be sung in Italian with projected supertitles in English. Visit florentineopera.org or call (414) 291-5700, Extension 224.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 'Viva la Mamma!' is the opera where everything goes hilariously
