This double bill is an odd couple: first, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s frothy 1909 comedy about a wife who’s so keen to hide her nicotine habit that she inadvertently lets her husband think she’s taken a lover; then, Tchaikovsky’s lushly romantic one-acter about true love restoring a blind princess’s sight.
Opera Holland Park’s new productions make no attempt to draw any links, and the evening works just fine that way. The only shared element is the designer, takis, and his work for the one is the polar opposite of the other.
In Il Segreto di Susanna, it’s the lingering smell of smoke in Count Gil’s flat that makes him suspicious, and even if we can’t smell the stage cigarettes, we can imagine the heady atmosphere in the flower-filled, panelled living room as Gil, in his rose-pink three-piece suit, throws himself down on the chaise longue.
Dramatically, the piece sits somewhere between comedy and farce, with a few lines worthy of a 1980s sitcom – “My mother? She’s probably at it too” – and a sly charm that comes over nicely in John Wilkie’s production. Musically, it’s sweet, glittery and, yes, perfumed, with solo flute and muted violin wafting languorous rings into the air whenever Susanna takes a drag.
Conducted by John Andrews, the City of London Sinfonia as yet lacks a bit of confidence in the strings, but the piece comes to life thanks to stage-filling performances by Richard Burkhard as blustery Gil, Clare Presland as wily Susanna and John Savournin as their Basil Fawlty-esque servant.
Olivia Fuchs’s production of Iolanta takes place a world away, in a starkly grey set where fluorescent tubes delineate the princess’s sterile room and the strings of lights trace the outlines of tree trunks; it’s relentlessly drab until Mark Jonathan’s lighting warms and flickers as Iolanta’s sight returns. Maybe Tchaikovsky is a more skilful orchestrator than Wolf-Ferrari, but, with Sian Edwards conducting, the singers have no trouble getting across the orchestra. Mikhail Svetlov provides genuine Russian vocal heft as the King, and the two glorious central performances, from soprano Natalya Romaniw in the title role and tenor David Butt Philip as smitten Vaudémont, are enough on their own to make the whole evening worthwhile.
At Opera Holland Park, London, until 3 August.
