Hubicka

Wexford Opera House

Wexford Festival Opera is not much into revisitings or revivals. Yes, it did do Balfe's Rose of Castilea second time, but that was back in 1991 for a 40th- anniversary commemoration of the festival's very first offering. And it happened out of festival, with the accompaniment of two pianos rather than an orchestra.

Yes, the festival's artistic director David Agler did announce Donizetti's L'Ajo nell'imbarazzofor the 2006 festival, without realising it had been done in 1973. He solved the problem by presenting the work in a later version which had a different title, Don Gregorio.

But Agler has finally made a definitive break with tradition. Smetana's Hubicka, which opened at Wexford Opera House on Monday, is the same 1876 opera by Smetana that was presented at the old Theatre Royal in 1984. Then it was performed in English, as The Kiss. This year it's being heard in the original Czech, with surtitles.

The plot concerns an unusual and headstrong pair of lovers. The young widower, Lukáš, is not so much grieving the loss of his wife (the match had been dictated by his parents) but looking forward to having the freedom to marry his true love, Vendulka.

Lukáš and Vendulka are both headstrong, and by denying him a kiss in front of friends and neighbours she triggers an almighty row. Despite the bad behaviour that follows, the two reconcile and the opera ends on the happiest of notes.

Unlike this year's other two Wexford operas, Hubickais a work that presents characters of flesh and feeling and follows the rise and fall of their emotional temperatures with subtlety.

My memory of the 1984 production is that it was drab and ineffectual. Michael Gielata’s new production, with sets by James Macnamara and costumes by Fabio Toblini, is anything but dull. The set is a wooden cyclorama with sliding panels, which towers over a sward of greenest grass. The costumes are folksy and the visual effects sometimes jokey – smugglers grapple with giant strings of sausages, which run the full width of the stage – while Christopher Akerlind’s sometimes saturated lighting creates striking images.

The two main characters are finely drawn. Pumeza Matshikiza’s Vendulka is warm and vibrant in a way that allows her independence to shine through. Peter Berger’s Lukáš shows easy self-confidence, with a volatility which takes him off the deep end and back to amorous form with remarkable speed.

There’s a nice comic turn from Jiri Pribyl as Vendulka’s elderly father, while Elišká Weissova’s Marinka and Ekaterina Bakanová’s Barce are stalwart supports for Vendulka. Conductor Jaroslav Kyzlink may not always have kept stage and pit ideally in step, but his touch was appropriately light and deft.

Performances tonight, on Sunday and on Oct 27 and 30