Opera North’s Cavalleria Rusticana/Aleko – Leeds Grand Theatre

Music: Pietro Mascagni/Sergei Rachmaninov

Libretto: Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti/Guido Menasci/Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko

Conductor: Antony Hermus

Director: Karolina Sofulak

Both operas were written within two years of each other; both composers were extremely young, at the very start of their careers; both deal with jealousy and murder; both contain large chunks of orchestral music. Similarities enough to pair them? The main difference is thatCavalleria Rusticana has become a mainstay of opera houses worldwide, mainly in the company of Pagliacci, whereasAleko has no kind of a reputation in the West, virtually all the recordings featuring singers and orchestras from the Russian sphere of influence.

Unfortunately Opera North’s production will not start a rush to stageAleko.Before the interval Karolina Sofulak’s revival of her 2017 production ofCavalleria Rusticana excited the audience’s interest in an opera that proved to offer plenty of melodic charm, but little to involve us by way of characters or situation.

Sofulak’s decision to relocateCavalleria Rusticanato Communist Poland garnered a mixed response in 2017, with plenty of interest in the bare shelves of Mama Lucia’s shop (or “sklep”, as the sign said), the long queues and Alfio’s possession of a taxi, the only car in the village, but in fact this is taut and vivid presentation of the quartet of Turiddu, Santuzza, Alfio and Lola. The glorious stream of melody switches from spring-like rusticity to menacing brass figures, all in the blink of an eye, and Antony Hermus never allows the tension to drop for a moment.

Andres Presno, with a suitably Italianate timbre to his singing, projects the irresponsibility of Turiddu, engaged in an affair with Helen Evora’s coolly sensual Lola. Giselle Allen’s passionate Santuzza, spurned by Turiddu, provides a total contrast, her soprano soaring over the Easter Hymn and turning at times to a snarl of revenge. Alfio, married to Lola, goes through every shade of emotion from cheerful boisterousness to agonies of jealousy in Robert Hayward’s intensely subtle portrayal, eventually appalled by the horror of the deed he must commit. Anne-Marie Owens, a committed bystander as Turiddu’s mother, projects sympathy, solid permanence and a growing sense of horror.

For the new production ofAlekoSofulak and designer Charles Edwards changed the original setting of a gypsy encampment to a New Age commune, possibly in Christiania, Denmark – Edwards’ appealing designs draw on that commune. The strange compulsion that opera directors have to link one-acters together means that Aleko is Alfio, several years later. The old woman who delivers the final summing up is Mama Lucia, Lola drifts through Aleko’s tormented mind, he hasn’t even changed his shirt.

This doesn’t seem to add much, except for giving the reason for a remarkable tortured performance by Robert Hayward, moving from misfit to suspicious lover to lone agonised outsider – and the power of both his performances should not obscure the excellence of his singing.

Otherwise much of the opening stages ofAlekoconsists of a number of dances, not, for the most part, danced at Leeds, Sofulak preferring to build tension. An old man, father of Zemfira, Aleko’s partner, tells the tale of how his woman left him for another man, Aleko, the outsider in the group, cannot understand why the old man took no revenge; the rest of the commune understand perfectly – love must be free. Matthew Stiff’s hirsute figure and resonant bass fit the bill of the father perfectly, as do Elin Pritchard and Andres Presno as the careless young lovers heedless of the fate that awaits them, both singing with intensity and fervour.

The dances, interludes and choruses are attractive (the last of the choruses reminiscent of Rachmaninov’s church music), it’s just the tension that’s missing. Hermus’ conducting finds more subtlety of detail than before the interval, the chorus perform nobly in both pieces, butAlekonever catches fire as didCavalleria Rusticana.

Runs until 24th February 2024, before touring.