We may as well lay it on the table now: the title character of Rossini’s opera Le comte Ory is a creep. A tenacious but rubbish seducer, Ory doesn’t go much for “no means no”, and is determined to have his way with the Countess Adèle, whose husband is off fighting in the Holy Land.
There’s cross-dressing, duplicitousness and moderate frolicking – a sort of Carry On Up the Crusades, with all the cringe that implies. But oh, the music. It froths and bubbles and, towards the end, you’ll hear Rossini’s most delicious trio, A la faveur de cette nuit obscure, which is spoilt only by the fact that the threesome is formed when Ory has slipped, uninvited, into Adèle’s bed.
Audiences will decide for themselves whether Count Ory and Le comte Ory should be forgiven, tolerated or cancelled when NZ Opera presents the work in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch from May 30 to June 29. It’s the job of director Simon Phillips to downplay the #MeToo. Except he’s not.
“It’s so reprehensible plot-wise that we decided to push into how wrong it is, rather than try to find some scenario that took the edge off it,” Phillips says.
As an example, Phillips has transferred the opera – written in 1828 – from 13th-century France to 21st-century New Zealand. He accepts that there’s jeopardy in removing Ory from his original context. “The count wasn’t considered unfunny in the middle of the 19th century. It was an accepted trope that there would be a sex fiend in the opera. [Set in the present], it’s a bit more dangerous, because in contemporary terms he’s a horror.”
The upside of an update is that it gives greater scope for satire. “If you’re trying to be funny, then recognisable targets are good,” Phillips says. “And there will be an obvious comic tension between the period and tone of the music and the fact that we’re in a contemporary world.”
Phillips is a Kiwi but he has lived in Australia for decades, popping over for the occasional project (theatregoers will remember the superb North By Northwest he directed for Auckland Theatre Company in 2022). It’s his first piece for NZ Opera since the 1990s, but he has worked with Brad Cohen, the company’s new general director, who is conducting this Ory and has recorded it for Naxos.
“I love working [with conductors],” Phillips says. “There’s that immediate collaboration in the rehearsal room and often the conductor will be able to point out things in the music my ear isn’t aware of: ‘What’s happening here is this; it’s really important.’ Then that’s a challenge I have to meet.”
Simon Phillips directs NZ Opera’s new production of Rossini’s Le comte Ory, playing Auckland, Wellington & Christchurch, May 30-June 29.
