Opera makes a dramatic return to Dom Pedro V, Macau, China’s oldest Western-style theatre

There’s nothing old-fashioned about a new opera production at the oldest Western-style theatre in China, Macau’s Dom Pedro V Theatre.

Duetto, a pairing of two one-act operas, features a rock’n’roll set, action that takes place throughout the theatre, from foyer to stage, and, in place of an orchestral accompaniment, a piano and a trombone quartet.

The two chamber operas, written nearly 200 years apart, are linked dramatically into a single story. Although this is not entirely new – a recent production of Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci at Covent Garden set both operas within the same village and characters from one appeared in the other – it still makes for a different experience.

The production is the latest operatic milestone for the historic theatre, built in 1860 and said to have staged the Asian premiere of Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly.

“Over the past 20 years, Hong Kong audiences have been able to enjoy a number of productions of what is referred to as grand opera, but Macau has been exposed to operettas a lot more, and the Dom Pedro V has always been the stage of choice,” says Andrea Dal Cin, opera producer and co-founder of classical music promoter Solomusica.

For Duetto, Dal Cin has chosen two rarely performed works, La Serva Padrona (The Maid Made Mistress) by 18th century composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, first performed in 1733, and Il Segreto di Susanna (Susanna’s Secret) by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, which premiered in 1909.