Opera
Maid Made Boss, Pinchgut Opera’s take on La serva padrona, shows that the 18th century comic opera might have been made for the contemporary Australian company. By Harriet Cunningham.
Pinchgut Opera adds comic polish to Maid Made Boss
The plot was wafer thin, the characters two-dimensional and the entire opera was over in under an hour. And yet the 1752 Parisian debut of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s comic opera La serva padrona caused a war of words to rival the latest TayTay social media storm.
In one corner stood Jean-Philippe Rameau, composer and music theorist, whose grand five-act operas telling tales of gods and kings established him as natural heir to composer and court favourite Jean-Baptiste Lully. In the other corner stood philosopher and would-be composer Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose 1753 pamphlet, “Letter on French Music”, railed against the bombast of state-sanctioned opera, calling it “continuous barking, unbearable to all unprejudiced ears”. As an alternative, Rousseau proposed “a comic duet that is known to everyone there, and I mention it boldly as a model of singing, unity of melody, dialogue, and taste, which I believe will lack nothing, when it will be well executed to audiences who know how to listen: this is the first act of La serva padrona”.
The spat between Rameau and Rousseau eventually fizzled out after two years of furious public debate, but La serva padrona left its mark on opera, and not only for its revolutionary musical approach. A few decades later in Vienna, Mozart was setting to music Beaumarchais’s banned play about insubordinate servants, The Marriage of Figaro, even as the barricades went up in Paris.
After a foray to Sydney’s Roslyn Packer Theatre for The Fairy Queen earlier this year, Pinchgut Opera returns to City Recital Hall, a venue that makes up for in acoustics what it lacks in stage machinery, to present Maid Made Boss, its own take on Pergolesi’s tiny masterpiece.
Designed by Lochie Odgers, the set is basic, with a proscenium arch defined by curtains and a small raised area. Behind the stage sits the orchestra, and behind it a backdrop of blue skies and baroque clouds.
Onto this humble stage steps a servant carrying a broom. It’s Vespone (Gareth Davies), the silent sidekick of our heroine, Serpina (Celeste Lazarenko). He puts his broom to work, accompanied by the busy backdrop of an orchestra warming up. As he sweeps he notices a smudge on the floor. He gets on his knees to give it a proper scrub when, suddenly, he’s in a pool of light. Spotlight on Vespone! He acts surprised, shocked to realise he is being watched by a full house of 21st century Sydneysiders, and then is quietly chuffed. He dusts himself down and takes a sheepish bow, which wins him a warm laugh and a round of applause. In a few well-drawn gestures, he has set the tone for a production that is more than happy to focus on the little things, while the big things focus on themselves.
Vespone is the dramatic glue that holds the barely there plot of Maid Made Boss together. We’re in the dressing room of Signor Uberto (Morgan Pearse), a wealthy bachelor who is constantly tormented by his recalcitrant maid, Serpina. Uberto enlists Vespone to find him a wife to bring some order to the household. Serpina fights back by finding herself a husband, who not only threatens to beat up Uberto but also tries to extract a hefty dowry. It’s easy to see where this is all going. Uberto quickly reconsiders and makes Serpina the offer she has been seeking all along. A happy ending ensues for all, including Serpina’s fake husband, who was Vespone in disguise.
Pearse and Lazarenko take on the roles of Uberto and Serpina with an attention to detail and vocal sheen that completely upstages their stock characters. Pearse embodies the louche, ageing playboy, but when he sings, his rangy baritone brings a satisfying warmth to even the lowest of notes. Lazarenko plays the unashamedly manipulative Serpina with a wicked smile and dazzling clarity, keeping vibrato to a minimum to make every note count. Meanwhile, Davies saves his voice until the last act, when his piratical “Arrrrr” drops with well-timed silliness.
This is Eugene Lynch’s first production for Pinchgut as director, but it is unlikely to be his last. His delicate, detailed choreography speaks to hours well spent as assistant director to Neil Armfield in previous productions such as Platée and Hamlet. He also, thankfully, resists the temptation to resort to innuendo and dick jokes, in spite of the textual, musical and dramatic opportunities. Note to playmakers: this production demonstrates how a character can hold a broomstick and be very funny without any phallus references.
The use of follow spots (lighting designer Morgan Moroney) is a simple but effective means of creating different spaces on a basic set and picking out key expressions without having to go the full ham. The approach allows a finely crafted score and immaculate musical performances to shine through the comic business.
Pergolesi’s original score was conceived as a comic interlude to his serious opera Il prigioniero superbo, a light diversion for people remaining in their seats at interval, and runs for a bare 40 minutes. Artistic director Erin Helyard has extended the work to 70 minutes with the addition of an overture and entr’acte. This puts a welcome spotlight on the tight band of musicians who remain onstage throughout, and especially on violin soloist Matthew Greco, who performs Evaristo Felice dall’Abaco’s Concerto in D major with beguilingly casual virtuosity. The 12-piece ensemble also displays spectacular precision in the lengthy recitativos accompagnatos, the quick-fire wit and repartee of Uberto and Serpina set to music. Comic timing, orchestrated.
La serva padrona could have been written for Pinchgut Opera. The company gets its name from Pinchgut Island, a small lump of rock in Sydney Harbour, which was used to intern criminals in the early years of British colonisation. The island, which now houses Fort Denison, an artillery position built in the 1840s to repel other opportunistic colonists, stands in clear view of Bennelong Point, the Sydney Opera House, Admiralty House and Farm Cove, site of the opulent annual fireworks spectacular that is Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour.
Pinchgut Opera is now well established and, indeed, is supported by and collaborates with Australia’s national opera company. However, its name endures as a niggling counterpoint, an apt description of a band of artists making opera their way. As the other big opera company in town wheels out another year of warhorses and musicals amid a crisis of leadership, Pinchgut Opera is about to announce its biggest year yet, 15 performances across four productions. Vive la révolution.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on September 20, 2025 as "Small and perfectly formed".
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