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L'arbore Di Diana / Sala, Comparato, Vázquez, Dubrovsky

Subtitle Language: Spanish

Genre: Opera

L'arbore di Diana (The Tree of Diana), is an opera composed in 1787 by Vicente Martín y Soler, with an original libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte. Da Ponte's only other libretto not taken from an existing plot was Così fan tutte. Its premiere on 1 October 1787 marked the wedding of Joseph II's niece, the Archduchess Maria Teresa to Prince Anton Clemens of Saxony. The work was enormously successful in its day, but Martín's operas have since fallen from the repertoire. A revival was performed during the 2007 / 2008 season at the Theater Bielefeld in North Rhine Westphalia, Germany.

When Lorenzo da Ponte was looking for a musician to accompany him to the Russian Imperial court in Saint Petersburg, he immediately thought of a bright young composer who had authored three highly successful comic operas with him in the late 1780s in Vienna - Vincenzo Martini.

Vincenzo Martini? It sounds preposterous now, but da Ponte's letters suggest that after his Viennese years, he remembered his work with this forgotten Spanish musician more fondly than his collaborations with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The twentieth century has brought a revival of the work of Martini - known now by his birth name, Vicente Martín y Soler. Barcelona has recently seen a successful production of Una Cosa Rara, and Madrid a very funny version of La Capricciosa Corretta. Both of these works are graced with witty, elegant librettos by da Ponte.

It was high time for this composer to come back home to his native city of Valencia. Valencia's ambitious Palace of the Arts was recently completed with the opening of its fourth and last hall - a small, cozy venue, aptly named after Martín y Soler. No better work could have been chosen to close the year there than the composer's most celebrated opera, L'Arbore di Diana (The Tree of Diana), in a new production by British theater wunderkind Daniel Slater (seen Dec. 28).

First given in Vienna in 1787 to mark the marriage of the Archduchess Maria Theresia, Emperor Joseph II's niece, L'Arbore di Diana was designed by da Ponte to cater to the tastes of the Austrian capital's sophisticated public, although the characters and situations are drawn from ancient Greek and Roman mythology. The opera was called "amoral" in its time, and it's not surprising to learn that da Ponte was working on L'Arbore di Diana at exactly the same time that he was hastily scribbling away on the Don Giovanni libretto for Martín y Soler's rival. In a "delightful garden" on an unnamed island, the rigid moral code of the goddess Diana bans her maids from cavorting with men: if they do, the heavy apples of a tree will fall on their heads. In a convoluted game of revolving doors, the maids plot with their prospective lovers, and with the help of Amore, to make the goddess fall in love's trap. When chance decides that Diana must be the first to walk under the terrible tree, she is forced to confess her guilt and Amore's triumph and leave her subjects free to love whomever they want.

Valencia's Diana staging profited from Slater's choice to set the action in the no-man's-land-and-time of myths and fables. An open space in the middle of the stage worked as forest, pond and banquet area; the fateful tree hung elegantly over a modern staircase, and the characters were dressed in sexy tunics in the eighteenth-century Grecian mode.

In a strong cast of eight well-matched artists, the sure, warm mezzo and considerable comedic skills of Marina Comparato as Amore stole the show. Ofelia Sala's Diana contributed aristocratic legato, beautifully controlled coloratura and a properly imperious manner. Silvia Vázquez, Sandra Fernández and Cristina Faus sang with art and grace as ingratiating nymphs, and Joel Prieto, Dmitry Korchak and Christian Senn provided vibrant, focused singing and perfect timing to their gallant pursuits.

Baroque specialist Rubén Dubrovsky led a crisp, light reading of a delightful score. Martín y Soler, an imaginative and highly skilled artisan, was clearly not a genius on the order of Mozart. But it's easy to understand his public's love affair with this naughty story, its creative instrumentation and its eminently hummable tunes.

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