Sincerely Wilde at heart

Classics, whether in music, literature or theatre, are surely best enjoyed as originally conceived?

Not so. The latest musical adaptation of a work of literature, following on from Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, is that smoothest, most perfect of drawing-room dramas, Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest.

First performed in 1895, The Importance of Being Earnest has been a supreme success. There have been a couple of dozen film versions, and it is still regularly staged worldwide. It delights with its barbed wit, and delicious humour.

NI Opera and Wide Open Opera are about to make history touring Gerald Barry’s groundbreaking operatic version, which has Gwendolen and Cecily arguing through megaphones to the accompaniment of smashing plates, while Lady Bracknell is sung by a man, and Canon Chasuble by a woman.

This is no ordinary opera. But will it be fun or a disaster?

The work was first performed in Los Angeles, in 2011, and at the Linbury Studio Theatre, at the Royal Opera House, London last year.

The critics were enthusiastic. The Financial Times said it was “a unique piece of music theatre that would surely have had Wilde smiling at its pure outrageousness,” the Independent said it was “the most confident, volatile comic opera for a decade,” and the Guardian praised the score’s “sheer uninhibited exuberance”.

These notices caught the attention of Wide Open Opera’s artistic director, Fergus Sheil. “Only somebody as crazy and foolhardy as Gerald Barry would attempt to match Oscar Wilde’s perfection and wit in The Importance of Being Earnest,” he says.

“And only Gerald Barry’s genius could possibly have brought it off — not only measuring up to Wilde’s flawless precision, but adding unimagined contemporary dimensions to this much-loved work.”

Opera audiences throughout Ireland, he says confidently, are in for a treat.

Barry is regarded as Ireland’s greatest living composer and librettist, with many compositions commissioned by the BBC. The Importance of Being Earnest is his fifth opera, and the County Clare man says that he had concerns, at first, but couldn’t turn down such an incredible opportunity.

Barry took a scythe to Wilde’s original. This will horrify the old guard, but the original text would be far too long as an opera. Barry says, nevertheless, that the core of the play still stands, despite the cuts, which is a tribute to Wilde’s genius. For this Irish premiere, NI Opera and Wide Open have brought in the award-winning designer/director, Antony McDonald, whose innovative and daring work is acclaimed. Operatic director, Richard Jones, for example, credits Macdonald with encouraging him to set Billy Budd in a boarding school. “Without him, I don’t think I’d have had the courage to do that,” Jones says.

By the age of 24, McDonald was working with Welsh National Opera, and by his 30s with the Royal Court, Scottish Opera, Royal Danish Ballet, and more.

How did he tackle the challenge of an operatic Importance of Being Earnest? “The original play is, as you say, a masterpiece. It comes, however, with a lot of baggage — no pun intended — which I feel completely liberated from with Gerald’s opera, which I really do consider to be a masterpiece itself, in its own way.

“Not many contemporary composers have written a comic opera that is genuinely funny, and it is already into its third stage production.”

Barry, McDonald says, has kept the core of the text, but added his own anarchic wit to Wilde’s. “I think that it is a masterstroke to have written Lady Bracknell for a male singer. This totally resonates with the examination in the piece of what are considered ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles. After all, the women are so much stronger than the men here.”

McDonald read Wilde’s original four-act play several times before rehearsals began. “But, once in the rehearsal room, it is Barry that we are dealing with and we go with his ‘take’ on the piece and the characters.”

It was fun creating the opera for its Irish premiere, McDonald says, and he hopes this is shared with audiences. Yes, people who hold the play as precious might be shocked, “but this is a full-blooded beast, not a Merchant/Ivory lavender-bag event with pastiche period charm.”

This co-production features an international cast led by Belfast-born Aoife Miskelly, in the key role of Cecily, and mezzo-soprano Jessica Walker as Gwendolen. Peter Tantsits sings John Worthing, while Australian bass-baritone, Joshua Bloom, plays Algernon, his role in the world premiere in Los Angeles. Bass-baritone Stephen Richardson sings Lady Bracknell, while Welsh contralto, Hilary Summers, sings Miss Prism, and Christoper Cull doubles as Lane and Merriman. Last, but not least, that incredible actor, writer, and theatre artist, Olwen Fouéré (recently seen here in Maria de Buenos Aires) plays Dr Chasuble.

“I decided that having given one female role to a man, it was only right to cast a strong woman in the role of Chasuble,” says McDonald. “And it had to be Olwen.”

Renowned conductor, Pierre-André Valade (chief conductor with the Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen, and principal guest conductor with the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain in Lyon) will direct the Crash Ensemble in Gerald Barry’s challenging score. Fortunately, Ireland’s foremost contemporary-music group will be more than equal to the task. Founded in 1997 by Donnacha Dennehy, it is committed to performing new works by acclaimed composers, thereby broadening the repertoire on offer to audiences, as this production does.

* The Importance of Being Earnest is at Cork Opera House, Nov 2, 8pm. www.corkoperahouse.ie

Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, Nov 8 — 9, 8pm. www.corkoperahouse.ie.