Domenico Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto, The Secret Marriage | ROH Mumbai
The opening of the Royal Opera House, Mumbai offers a huge opportunity for prestige events. We, Giving Voice Society, are preparing the first ever full-length opera production in this beautiful venue, an occasion of great significance.
Following the success of our productions of Britten’s Little Sweep in 2013 and Purcell’s masterpiece, Dido and Aeneas in 2014, GVS is proud to be launching its third full scale opera performed entirely by Indian singers: Domenico Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto, The Secret Marriage.
The dates will be 27th – 29th July 2017, including three evening performances and one Saturday matinee.
Opera at the ROHM
The opening of the Royal Opera House, Mumbai, in 2016 has provided a perfect opportunity to stage opera once again in India, in a venue both sumptuous and appropriate. The ROHM is straight away the most elegant venue in Mumbai. This will be the first proper opera production in the newly refurbished house. It will comprise an Indian cast and production team.
Opera as an art form appeals as much to the man in the street as to the connoisseur, and introduces Mumbai audiences to the finest art form in western music in a purpose-built venue.
India is ready for western opera, which has so many characteristics of Bollywood – big romantic plots, dramatic scenarios, comic twists and turns, and, of course, wonderful music.
The Production
The Secret Marriage by Domenico Cimarosa is a comedy in two acts. It is a comedy of romantic errors played by a small cast. It was premiered one year after Mozart’s death, in 1792, and was the most spectacularly popular opera of its day. Ludwig II was so impressed he encored the entire piece!
Posterity may have favoured the geniuses of the era, Mozart and Beethoven, but contemporaries would have preferred Cimarosa – more professional, more prolific, more fun! His music, Mozartian in quality, expresses the farcical plot to perfection. The characters are in the commedia dell’arte style typical of the comedic genre. Filled with comic intrigues and confusions, the opera is more Bollywood than heavyweight art. It is music that is easy on the ear, and when we played a long scene from it in October 2015 our Bombay audience enjoyed it immensely.
The Cast
Giving Voice Society trains Indian students in the art of western singing – both operatic and art song. For the past seven years we have trained singers from all over India. Several have gone on to attend western colleges. For our productions in India we have generally used singers committed to the western art form, whether or not they are attending western colleges. However, for the Secret Marriage, which is more advanced – being fully staged in Italian, and with orchestra – we have assembled as many of the best singers we can for the prestige event at the Royal Opera House, Mumbai. As ever, the production will be directed by Rehaan Engineer with an India team, with music direction by Patricia Rozario and Mark Troop. We are delighted to have the services of musicians from the Symphony Orchestra of India for this production.
The Rehearsals
