Haydn’s comedy opera “Lo speziale” takes young singers to São Luiz

Uma love dispute entangled in jealousy, disguises and misconceptions leads to the Teatro São Luiz, in Lisbon, the comic opera “Lo speziale”, by Joseph Haydn, which premieres on Friday, played by young singers of the National Theatre of São Carlos.

With musical direction by João Paulo Santos and staging by Jorge Vaz de Carvalho, the show is part of the training work of the Studio of Opera do São Carlos for the season 2026/2027 and recovers the little-known operatic facet of Haydn.

The intrigue unfolds around Sempronio, an aged apothecary who intends to marry the young Grilletta, his pupil, although she is in love with Mengone, apprentice of the establishment.

The love dispute complicates with the intervention of Volpino, another young woman's suitor, triggering a succession of disguises, jealousy and misunderstandings.

Composed in 1768, about a libretto of the Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni, “Lo espeziale” (“The Boticário”) arrives on stage in a reconstructed version, since part of the original score of the third act was lost and did not reach our day, as told Lusa João Paulo Santos, at the end of an essay.

For this show, it was then chosen the reconstruction of H. C. Robbins Landon, published by Universal Edition, which recovered the missing numbers using other Haydn compositions, he explained.

According to the conductor, there are several possible reconstructions, but the one chosen “ends up being the most practical”, for making available all the musical material necessary for the interpretation.

The production is performed by early career singers, selected through auditions, and accompanied by the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, in an experience that aims to provide them with a professional training similar to that they will find “in any theater in the world”.

“The evil of our professions is that they only learn on stage,” said João Paulo Santos, defending that it is before the public that young interpreters discover their abilities and face the real challenges of the profession.

In the opinion of the conductor, despite the evolution of music teaching in Portugal in recent decades and the growing technical preparation of young singers, the experience on stage remains decisive for the development of a career.

It was also for this reason that he chose “Lo speziale”, a work whose theatrical dynamics allows interpreters to work not only on vocal demands, but also on the construction of the characters and the dramatic meaning of each intervention.

The musical preparation of the singers began in September, following the scenic work in October and the rehearsals with the orchestra in November, in a process that seeks to reproduce the functioning of a professional production.

“ The idea is to give a professional training and be exactly as they will find in any theater in the world”, he explained.

João Paulo Santos also revealed that the hearings attracted numerous candidates, especially women, and the production chose to distribute some roles by different interpreters in order to provide stage experience to a greater number of young singers.

The cast includes Gustavo Wecelão da Luz, in the role of Mengone, and Tiago Simas, as Sempronio, while Catarina Mouro and Maria Mendes alternate in the interpretation of Grilletta and Maria da Graça and Beatriz Patricio in the role of Volpino.

Although a male character, Volpino is played by a woman since the opera premiere in 1768, an option that reflects the vocal conventions of the 18th-century musical theater, when certain male roles were written for sopranos.

Classified as ‘dramma giocoso’, the opera combines comical and sentimental elements, exploring characteristic situations of Goldoni theatre, considered one of the great reformers of Italian theater of the 18th century.

In fact, for João Paulo Santos, one of the great attractions of the work is precisely Goldoni's libretto: “These are almost dialogues that could be today. There are no kings here, no queens. They are all people we know and express themselves in a very direct way”.

The conductor highlights the theatrical vivacity of the work and Goldoni’s “very skilled literary writing”, which, despite resorting to traditional situations of comedy, such as disguises and undiscounted loves, avoids the repetition of situations and manages to build a particularly “savoury” text.

For João Paulo Santos, this theatrical dimension is especially important in working with young interpreters, for allowing them to develop a more direct relationship between music, word and dramatic action.

The choice of the work is also an opportunity to divulge a less well-known aspect of the production of Joseph Haydn, an Austrian composer famous mainly for his symphonies and string quartets.

Despite having composed about 15 operas, Haydn is still little recognized for his production in this musical genre, a circumstance that John Paul Santos considers particularly curious, considering that his symphonies and quartets are “extremely dramatic and dramatic”.

In the Maestro’s opinion, this aspect of Haydn’s work has remained in the shadow due to the temporal proximity to Mozart, who composed “a series of masterpieces” that “marked the history of music”.

“ It is we who have not recovered enough and it is a work that is still almost undone”, lamented, considering that there has been some “disloyalty” in the dissemination of Haydn's operas.

Without considering “Lo speziale” a forgotten masterpiece, João Paulo Santos argues that the opera reveals the mastery of the musical and theatrical writing of its authors and deserves to be known as part of Haydn’s repertoire.

“No, we have to know the whole repertoire to be able to understand where it is. The more things we know, the better we realize everything ", he said.

“Lo speziale” premieres on Friday, at 20:00, at the São Luiz Teatro Municipal, where it is presented again on Sunday, at 17:30, with free entrance, subject to the room’s filling.