Written for the Opéra Comique in Paris but not performed in the composer’s lifetime, Donizetti’s Rita labours under a number of disadvantages for modern audiences. I can’t have been the only person in the Charing Cross Theatre for whom the title conjured up a classic Paul McCartney song. More seriously, how much can we enjoy today a comedy centred on domestic abuse?

A one-acter for three singers with eight musical numbers linked by spoken dialogue, Rita presents a woman on her second marriage, her first husband having been lost at sea. Except he hasn’t, and he returns at an inconvenient moment, believing that she in her turn has died in a fire. All very humorous, and an archetypal comic situation used also in Sullivan’s Cox and Box and later in Hollywood films with Cary Grant and Doris Day. The difference here is that the woman was beaten by her first husband, and in her second marriage has got her retaliation in first, keeping the meek Beppe in line by the same method.

It could all be rather grim viewing today, but in fact only one fairly light blow is dealt on stage and Donizetti’s witty and melodious score, deftly performed by the Faust Chamber Orchestra under Mark Austin, keeps things bubbling along good-humouredly. Gustave Vaëz’s libretto isn’t perfect – the characters’ motivations become somewhat confused towards the end – but the piece could be a useful (and inexpensive) addition to any opera company’s repertory, especially in the reduced orchestration by director Alejandro Bonatto, who also provides the English translation.

Resplendent in magenta wig and killer red shoes, Laura Lolita Perešivana brought a strong vocal and dramatic presence to the title role, though I occasionally wondered if she could have shown more of the character’s inner vulnerability. Tenor Brenton Spiteri, suitably slight of physique, played the hapless Beppe with all the requisite musical and physical dexterity. As the unwelcome revenant Gasparo, Phil Wilcox contributed deft comic timing alongside considerable charisma and vocal warmth, lightening a character which could easily be merely obnoxious.

Nicolai Hart-Hansen’s simple but effective designs suggested a Fifties setting, with the inn evoked by three doors and a table and chairs. A large screen at the back showed a bucolic painting, which changed discreetly as the action progressed. The director kept the energy levels up with plenty of physical movement, though his fondness for having the cast push the doors around the stage at dramatic moments quickly palled. I wondered, too, if a little more verbal wit couldn’t have been injected into the English translation.

The piece was an enterprising choice for the subterranean Charing Cross Theatre, and in its stripped-down form suits the space well. It makes for an entertaining and tuneful hour and a quarter, and leaves plenty of time for a suitable Italian meal in the restaurant over the way.

At the Charing Cross Theatre until 20th August https://charingcrosstheatre.co.uk/theatre/rita

William Hale

The Ulster Orchestra under Daniele Rustioni, making his Proms debut, were set a tricky challenge: an hour and half of available playing time, without interval. They filled this with a programme of broadly associated works, inasmuch as all were German and Romantic, but an eclectic selection for all that.

Opening with Wagner’s overture to Tannhäuser the initial wind passages were played with a well-refined elegance that never strayed towards ponderous, joined by equally restrained strings. It was a shame that the skittish, running passages that followed were occasionally marred by smudged rhythm and nervy entries. However the orchestra soon recovered its balance particularly as it segued into the Venusburg music, an extended opening to Act 1 added by Wagner in his 1861 revision of the opera.

Skipping forward a hundred years or so the orchestra was joined by Louise Adler for Richard Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder. Composed in 1948, with Germany facing the full horror of Nazism and the Second World War, Strauss’s tender songs were beautifully delivered. Adler floated beautifully above the lush orchestrations, delivering the long, melismatic lines with poise and delicacy. Special mention too for the orchestra’s leader Tamás Kocsis whose solos were a perfect foil to the vocal line, particularly in the third song Beim Schlagengehen. Strauss is a regular user of dynamic markings such as piano subito and pianissimo subito, and just occasionally these weren’t observed quite promptly enough leading to the soprano being lost: a desk fewer of upper strings would likely have been enough to compensate for this.

Gustave Mahler’s Blumine Is a short work with a long history, having served time as a movement in the first symphony, re-sused as incidental music and then further reworked at least once as a love offering to women Mahler had relationships with (neither of them Alma). Despite all the baggage, the piece itself is, in the most part, a light, joyous 6/8 lilt, and Rustioni led the way through a rendition that never took itself too seriously. Following the opening passages for an expertly-played solo trumpet and strings, the melody was passed gracefully around the various instrumental families. A darker moment when the theme is inverted on a haunting oboe soon gave way to the return of the original theme, ending with one of the most delightful pianissimo duets between first and second violins, heavily laden with suspended 6ths before the final resolution.

Robert Schumann’s Symphony no. 4 is, like its composer, a much more serious sort of work, the D minor of the key signature being relentless through the stately opening subject of the first movement and never far away in the quicker section that completes the rest of the opening movement. Schumann’s original version of 1841 had the whole piece as one played-through work with linking passages, and despite Schumann’s revision ten years later, here the orchestra allowed no time between movements – which worked well, I thought. The similarly dark second movement benefited from some particularly fine work between a solo cello and oboe, before being followed by busy scherzo, interleaved by two contrasting sections and a finale, played in a style that had more than passing nod to Beethoven’s middle symphonies.

This was all led by an energetic conductor (so much so that he leapt into the air more than once) whose boundless enthusiasm infected both his players and audience alike. In a particularly nice touch he turned the orchestra to acknowledge the audience in the choir stalls – and the bust of Sir Henry, who I am sure would have been as swept along as the rest of us.

Lucas Elkin