Scottish Opera: An Italian Girl in Algiers

Blog by Gareth Vile | 14 Oct 2009

When I noticed the email asking me if I would like to “follow around the bikini sailor girls for a day,” I reminded myself not to subscribe to those sort of websites again and scrolled down the page. However, Scottish Opera were inviting me to attend an open rehearsal of An Italian Girl in Algiers, which promises opera as you’ve never seen it before. Reflecting only briefly on the sacrifices I must make as a critic, I arranged a visit.

The sailor bikini girls are a slight addition to a production that transplants Rossini’s orientalist love story to the set of a Latino soap opera. It is difficult to tell how this interpretation will play out from rehearsal: it relies on huge television screens to surround the singers with the trappings of a life luxurious, so I got a close-up audience with some ravishing arias instead. This is impossibly intense, and I hope that the assembled music students, all following the score, didn’t notice the tough guy hack wiping tears from his eyes.

Opera is tricky. Governments love it, as a good opera company is seen as a hallmark of Western Civilisation. It remains one of the major art forms, with public funding at high levels – reflecting the expense of staging – but has an aging audience. Versions like this are an attempt to make it lively and intelligent, to pull in a new generation. Do you see how quickly the bikini girls got me on the phone?

The length and intensity does require patience and knowledge, and the long passages of plot militate against reducing opera to a quick burst of energy to compete with a gig in the night out stakes. I can’t really comment on whether using a soap will make it cooler: I threw my television out of the window in a Live Art fuelled bout of ecstasy. The kitsch factor might help, though.

But it wasn’t the gimmick that brought forth my tears, nor that one of the bikini girls turned out to be married. It was the arias. Complex, deep emotions given voice, wrapped in rolls of glorious, surging music, they conjure up the heartbreak and angst that has given my life flavour and cut to the quick. The rehearsal was brief, well-disciplined. The singing was exquisite, ecstatic. I was devastated.

Over coffee, I chatted to the bikini girls. Their roles are pretty limited, bringing a little straight-backed glamour to the harem action. Like the soap opera TV screens, they are part of the apparatus that interprets the opera and are obviously talented, with experience in contemporary, musical theatre and ballet. Enthusiastic about the company they may be, but they don’t seem to be used to their potential.

Since Scottish Opera are putting on plenty of deals – if you are under 26 – Italian Girl is going to be worth a risk. It’s a classier date than the Polo Lounge or The Classic Grand. The fancy set might help, but it is nothing compared to the moments of raw beauty in the solos. As for me, I went home and started writing a libretto.