Whether it is the most lavishly funded opera house or an independent summer festival, opera should be about the singing. Production qualities are important but must be seen as secondary. Sadly, this is not often the case. However, at the fascinating If Opera this short season you can see a performance of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor that is resplendent with fabulous young voices. Staged with the audience in a horseshoe, having characters in contemporary-ish costumes entering from different directions, minimal props and a few twigs for scenery, our attention is totally focused on the singing.

Russian Alexey Gusev was a uniformly secure baritone, exuding menace throughout as Enrico Ashton, the Master of Lammermoor and vile brother to Lucia. He immediately grasps the role’s vocal demands and never falters from dominating his scenes, just as he dominates his unfortunate sibling. Perhaps a little more contrast between his unbridled darkness and apparent repenting would have been good but overall, a towering performance.

However, there was of course vocal contrast between Enrico and the luscious Italianate tenor Ángel Macías, singing and acting a passionate and lithe young Edgardo, with whom poor Lucia is madly in love. Well, not quite madly but there seems a suggestion from director Thomas Guthrie that she is not really very stable from the beginning and the shocking events are the catalyst rather than cause of sending her over the edge. He has a rich bright tenor with controlled phrasing and the ability to add heart-rending emotion to his voice.

With a richness of voice that seems to betray his youth, bass William Meinert as Raimondo Bidebent is also a striking stage presence. He is the authoritarian cleric but also the characterisation makes other nuanced suggestions, which I am yet to fully work through. Why the black eye in the scene when Lucia reveals she also has a shiner?

There is not a great deal to enable tenor Edward Leach to vocally excel in the role of Arturo Bucklaw. He also seemed to lack much stage direction and looks rather awkward at the denouement. Well, I suppose you would really having married someone who instantly rejects you. Similarly, although enjoyable there is not a great deal for Bethany Horak-Hallett to get her teeth into as Lucia’s Maid and companion.

Yet it is the quality of the performance of Lucia sung by Robyn Allegra Parton that is vital, and we have a thrilling and edge of seats engaging soprano who seemed remarkably as ease with one of opera’s most challenging roles.

This young singer gave a surprising display of coloratura singing that marked one of the highlights of my summer of opera festival across the country and abroad. This is a performer who can deliver with security at the high notes, thrill with the ornate trills and pyrotechnics demanded from the role, and still also prove dramatically convincing. In the intimate IF Opera marquee the singers are completely exposed and the cliché Up Close and Personal totally apt. However, this amazing lyric-coloratura soprano has a voice that must delight in the large houses as well.

That famous mad scene was accompanied by Sascha Reckert on the glass harmonica, and it really did create a sound that was ethereal and beautiful, suggesting that psychological otherworldiness that the singer had entered. Special mention should be made of the harp playing although the ensemble under baton of IF Opera musical director Oliver Gooch all deserve high praise.

Apart from perhaps suggesting Lucia was already “frail” there does not seem to have been much directorial shenanigans with Donizetti’s tale which is sufficiently dark, misogynistic and troubling without any help from contemporary hands.

Did we need the pretend rocks being brought in and out by the slowly-walking women? Probably not as the minimalistic staging requires us to use our imaginations for the Scottish Highlands.

The following night some of the Lucia cast took roles in the frothy and fun Die Fledermaus. This included Paul Curievici as a rather daft caricature Italianate lover Alfred. He took the role extremely well, clearly enjoying the opportunity to play the cheeky, if rather thick, operatic lothario. This was slightly confused when Ángel Macías who had sung Edgardo in Lucia made a guest appearance and swept everyone away with a sunny rendition of Funiculì, funiculà. It was good fun but this jollity (and the over top humour about Italians and pizza for example) was superfluous.

The form of the story telling was designed to support this sort of lighter performance, so we had a narrator played by Simon Butteriss as a Gilbert and Sullivan-esque barrister rather than large amounts of recitative. Well-known on the G&S circuit, Butteriss narrates, in character, what is a semi-staged production and litters it with the characteristic daft banter style that included references to contemporary politicians.

Edward Leach sang a charming but also dim Eisenstein, the butt of the rather lame bat revenge story, and Galina Averina was wittily sung and acted as his neglected wife Rosalinde. Think Marriage of Figaro and you are not far off. The soubrette maid Adele was brightly sung and acted by Annie Fassea.

With the format being close to a concert performance of arias with that witty narration, there was not a great deal to judge the players’ theatrical abilities, but Felix Kemp seemed confident singing a fine Falke and Matthew Siveter made for a ridiculous Frank.

With an international cast and an operetta that plays with identities and nationalities, I would have made more of the singers accents beyond the jokey Italian tenor, particularly as the usual Csardas didn’t sound particularly Hungarian to my ear.

The characterisation of Orlofsky did not quite come off as the trouser role requires more of a gender nuance. Bethany Horak-Hallett sang with elegance yet looked like a glorious redhead who just happened to be sporting a dinner suit. This was a pity as other little dramatic touches did hint at a laissez-fair attitude not only to sex but sexual orientation.

It was a bubbly entertainment, and the musicians conducted by Thomas Blunt kept the proceedings swirling along quite merrily. The small band of the Bristol Ensemble, performing the orchestral reduction from Pocket Publications, was a pleasing accompaniment for the singers, but it could not, of course, reproduce the extravagance of Viennese operetta. However, the packed audience thoroughly enjoyed it, and I laughed out loud of several occasions as well.

If you are able to get tickets to both shows they make an excellent contrast of musical forms, singing styles and musicianship – and it is more than worth making the trip to Belcombe Park in Bradford on Avon.

Images by Craig Fuller Photography for If Opera

https://www.ifopera.com/

Until August 31.