Sarasota Opera presents local debut of rarely seen Haydn comedy

After a season of dark and tragic stories, the Sarasota Opera closes with much lighter fare that will be new to just about everyone.

Joseph Haydn’s “Deceit Unwitted” (or “L’infedelta delusa”) had its premiere in 1773 during his time as resident composer for the Estahazy family in what is now Hungary. But the works were thought destroyed or lost until they were rediscovered shortly after World War II.

“They were written for a specific entity, the Esterhaza, a private nobleman’s theater, and there may have been one or two outside performances during Haydn’s lifetime,” said conductor Anthony Barresse, who returns to lead the Sarasota Opera Orchestra. “They were for private performances and the scores were pretty much presumed lost or destroyed until they were rediscovered.”

“Deceit Outwitted” has had a couple of productions in Europe and one in the United States prior to its debut at Sarasota Opera, Barrese said.

It will be familiar to “anyone versed in the harmonic and dramatic world of some of Mozart’s more comedic works. This won’t be far off,” Barrese said. “It’s very aria-centric. There are a few ensembles.”

It also will be reminiscent of the smaller comedic operas the company produced during the COVID pandemic to limit exposure and reduce costs when audiences were far smaller.

Barrese said “Deceit Outwitted” is “like a breath of fresh air” after the better-known and darker works presented this season – “Carmen,” “Lucia di Lamermoor” and “Luisa Miller.” “They are three very heavy and very important masterpieces and they are quite dark, and there’s nothing dark about this,” he said.

It features a cast of five in a romantic tale of comical complications involving a father who wants his daughter to marry a rich farmer instead of the peasant she loves. Soprano Yulan Piano makes her Sarasota debut as the daughter, Sandrina, and tenor David Walton makes his debut as the father Filippo.

Walton said the cast has been joking about his character’s name, because one of the other singers is Sarasota Opera favorite Filippo Fontana, who plays the peasant, Nanni. The cast also includes tenor William Davenport, who was last heard in 2022 in “The Daughter of the Regiment,” as the farmer, Nencio. Soprano Hanna Bremmer returns as Nanni’s sister, Vespina. It is Hammer’s 10th leading role since her 2018 Sarasota debut.

Improvising the singing

Barrese said he is working with the cast to approach the style of singing that would have been performed in Haydn’s day, including lots of improvisational elements in the music.

“The tradition for this Haydn piece is me making it my own expression of my voice. That’s a beautiful part of this repertoire,” said Walton. “I get to introduce myself into something so new and make it my own, make it personal. I like a lot of coloratura. I like a lot of high notes. Maestro Barresse and I have had a great collaborative relationship to discover those high notes.”

The improvisational elements mean that “if you come to five performances, you will hear five different performances,” said Barrese, comparing it to the work of jazz musicians who pull improvisational moments out of their heads.

“When I do this kind of music, I encourage singers to be free and improve, to change their improvisations so they really feel the improvisatory moments,” he said.

Performers enjoy a comedy

Walton said working on a comedic opera “is a blast, but comedy is just hard to stage. The beat has to land in order for the bit to be delivered for the audience to be understandable. With tragedy, you follow along a sketch, but with comedy it’s an open box. You kind of don’t know what’s going to happen. And while it’s exciting, it can be very stressful.”

After performing in a tragedy Walton said he feels emotionally exhausted, but with a comedy it’s more of a physical fatigue.

“After something like this, I’m very chatty for a couple of hours after the show,” he said. “Doing a Puccini or a heavier Verdi, like ‘Traviata,’ I need recovery time. For comedy, I just need a nap.”

The production is directed by Marco Nistico, a former singer who is the company’s artistic administrator and a stage director.

“It’s great to have someone like him who has been a great singing actor in his career and he’s great at giving us a little bit of an open canvas,” Walton said. “He gives a lot of notes on physical gestures and movements that we can’t see.”

The production is something of a departure for Walton, a bel canto tenor who has been heard elsewhere in “Don Pasquale,” “La Cenerentola” and “The Barber of Seville.”

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“It’s interesting for me because I’m not playing a romantic lead, which I usually do. I’m playing a father who gets duped in the end, so it’s a question of how do I portray myself? I can’t have this grace everywhere I walk. I have to be a bit more buffoonish. We’re hoping the audience will be laughing as we’re finding the comedy amidst the reality.”

And that’s important, he said.

“While dramatic opera is so important, I think a lot of times we forget to live comedy,” Walton said. “There’s a lot of comedy in our lives. It’s good for your health, good for the community and friendships to go out and laugh together.”

‘Deceit Outwitted’

By Joseph Haydn. Conducted by Anthony Barrese, directed by Marco Nistico. March 15-23. Sarasota Opera House, 61 N. Pineapple Ave., Sarasota.  $32-$155. 941-328-1300; sarasotaopera.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Haydn comedy opera ‘Deceit Outwitted’ gets Sarasota Opera debut