This year NBR New Zealand Opera has demonstrated its international class by stepping aside from the Top 20, recognising New Zealanders are ready for more of the huge range of masterpieces that delight the rest of the world, including 
some by composers who are not quite household names. First Xerxes; now Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci.
This pair of operas was seen in Auckland in 1999 but has not been seen together in Wellington since 1949 in a production by an Italian company. It’s largely fashion, the vicissitudes of taste and critical posturing about the verismo (“slice of life”) school, but we are now grown-ups and this production thoroughly compensates for the neglect.
Opera directors, like theatre directors, must find new ways to interpret dramatic works that speak to a different age. Congratulations on intelligent, well-informed background essays in the programme that place these works excellently in context.
John Parker’s many-faceted rock on a revolve ignores the village setting but allows for quick scene changes and an excellent acoustic platform that throws voices out. Elizabeth Whiting’s costumes are varied and imaginative; Jason Morphett’s lighting contributes unobtrusively.
Director Mike Ashman seeks to make some things explicit, both at the beginning and end of Cavalleria. Instead of his behind-curtain serenade, Turiddu (Peter Auty) and Lola (Anna Pierard) have hurried sex; and at the end, instead of the off-stage fight between the wronged Alfio (Marcin Bronikowski) and Turiddu, the latter is savagely murdered by anonymous hit-men.
Other singers are splendidly cast: Ukrainian Anna Shafajinskaia as Santuzza and Wendy Doyle as Mamma Lucia.
Pagliacci fits the set even better. The prologue, always an arresting device, is just that, from the Tonio of Australian baritone Warwick Fyfe. The Canio of Mexican Rafael Rojas is anguished and pathetic; Elizabeth Futral’s Nedda evokes alternating empathy and impatience; and Andrew Glover’s Elvis-tainted Beppe is plain funny.
The play-within-a-play in Act II is a triumph of design, and interaction between players and audience creates a tension never slackened.
With Oliver von Dohnányi commanding and sensitive in the pit, the splendid Vector Wellington Orchestra sustained the drama through the music; the Opera Chorus, supercharged by a children’s choir and Wellington’s versatile Nota Bene, was coached by Michael Vinten. They made some astonishing impact.
Both musically and dramatically, the genius of these two operas is fully and vividly exposed.
CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA and PAGLIACCI, directed by Mike Ashman, NBR New Zealand Opera, St James Theatre, Wellington, August 27-September 3; Aotea Centre, Auckland, September 15-25.