Singapore's Lirica Arts Presents Rossini's L'INGANNO FELICE

Lirica Arts Singapore presents its inaugural fully staged opera with Gioacchino Rossini's highly acclaimed one-act masterpiece L'inganno Felice (The Blissful Deception) on the 5th and 6th March 2022 at the NAFA Lee Foundation Theatre. This Singapore premiere is the local opera society's second public performance, after its sold-out debut NO TENORS ALLOWED, a recital of soprano-baritone duets presented in September 2021.

Lirica Art's L'Inganno Felice (The Blissful Deception) can proudly lay claim as the second opera by Rossini to be fully staged in Singapore (after the Singapore Lyric Opera productions of The Barber of Seville in 2007 and 1992). Boasting an entirely Singaporean cast, this attests that our local opera singers have reached the maturity to tackle the difficult technical demands of Bel Canto repertory, which is so rarely staged in Singapore.

The opera tells of the faithful wife who, unjustly accused of infidelity and cruelly abandoned at sea, through a series of schemes and manoeuvres, wins back her husband's love and is happily reconciled.

Director Tang Xinxin's "impressionistic" approach transplants the opera to an unknown era in olden China, enhanced by an abstract and minimalistic set by production designer Dorothy Png with costumes designed by Theresa Chan. Singaporean conductor Lien Boon Hua leads the Wayfarer Sinfonietta, a young chamber orchestra founded in 2021 to present symphonic music in innovative ways.

Singapore's most prolific tenor Jonathan Charles Tay, whose "excellent and very lyrical" voice was recently heard as Rodolfo in the Musician Initiative's production of Puccini's La Bohème, takes on his first Rossini role as the lovesick Duke Bertrando who still pines for his wife.

Soprano Joyce Lee Tung plays the fiendishly difficult role of Isabella, the disowned but faithful wife. Her recent appearance as Tonina and Madame Herz, in Singapore Lyric Opera's double bill of Mozart's Der Schauspieldirektor and Salieri's Prima la musica poi le parole, received much acclaim.

Veteran bass baritone William Lim plays the role of the villain Ormondo, whose amorous advances towards Isabella are unhesitatingly rejected, while baritone David Tao, an up-and-coming artist on the local opera scene, performs the role of Tarabotto, the Duchess's saviour and caretaker.

International baritone Martin Ng returns to the Singapore opera stage as Ormondo's unwilling henchman Batone, after appearances as Germont in National Kaohsiung Center for the Artsa?'Weiwuying's La Traviata and Doctor Bartolo in the National Taichung Theater's The Barber of Seville.

Sung in Italian with English and Chinese surtitles, the two performances of L'Inganno Felice are scheduled for 5th March 2022 (8 pm) and 6th March 2022 (4 pm).

Ticket price categories: $38, $68, $98, and $128 (limited gala tickets) are available via SISTIC www.sistic.com with 10% discount for senior citizens, 15% discount for students and 20% discount for bulk purchases of 4 or more tickets.

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