La Finta Giardiniera
Opera by W.A. Mozart
Venue: London Coliseum / English National Opera
MFA Thesis Project
NYU Tisch School of The Arts, Department of Design for Stage and Film.
Paper Project
Artist Statement
“A self portrait in stone” is how journalist Curzio Malaparte described his home in Capri, Italy. Malaparte was a complex man. He rose to fame by glorifying Mussolini and the fascist party, only to later be jailed by that same party. On his release, he joined the Communists, and later the American army. He is, as architecture historian Christopher Wilson puts it, “a soul who functions in extremes, and was always torn between opposites.” His home — a masterpiece of Italian Rationalist architecture — serves as a key inspiration for my production of La Finta Giardiniera.
When designing Finta, I began by defining the character of The Podesta. The opera takes place within his villa, and it is against his will that order begins to break down. In one telling aria, The Podesta brags of his historical lineage and its connections to the great thinkers and doers of the western world. He fashions himself as a sort of great-great-great-nephew of the Roman emperor Markus Aurelius. He stands, ostensibly, as a personification of rational thought. Like Malaparte however, he is somewhat of a contradiction. Far from being removed from the madness of the Opera’s second act, The Podesta is an active participant in it. It is partially his mad infatuation with Sandrina that drives him into a dangerous forest to search for her.
In designing my version of Finta, I looked closely at early Italian Rationalist architecture. Rationalist architecture, unlike other modernist architecture elsewhere in Europe, is somewhat backwards looking. It seeks to evoke, through cold mathematical proportion and shape, the spirit of Roman architecture. Like The Podesta, it insists upon its Romanity, its rationality. In my telling of Finta, The Podesta's space implicitly allies himself with the great thinkers of old. For him, It is both personification and a prison. His space is neurotically clean and ordered. His housekeepers are kept busy polishing the endless glossy tiles that he surrounds himself with. As the opera progresses, we delve deeper into The Podesta's architectural world. It is within this emotional space, and against its fortress walls that his house guests lay siege.
Permeating La Finta Giardiniera is a continuously rising madness. By the end of the first act, we start to see mental cracks forming in nearly all the characters as they run into and are confronted by their former lovers. Unable to reconcile their pasts, the couples descend fully into madness. It is only after this bout of mania that the couples begin to resolve their differences. Mozart shows us that when it comes to love, madness, rather than reason, is the pathway to truth. Madness becomes a sort of gate or passage that all must pass through to attain enlightenment. In the climax of my production, The Podesta’s home retreats through monumental castle gates into darkness. In this darkness and unable to recognise each other, our cast of characters emerges and is momentarily wiped clean of their previous identities. It is within the empty frame of the Podesta’s walls, physically and psychologically broken open, that their pasts are reconciled. The Podesta, seeing his perfectly manicured world turned on its head, relents. All is right and love prevails.
Key Research Images
