Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House
June 22, 2016

What do Turandot and The Love for Three Oranges have in common? Answer, both are derived from commedia dell’arte scenarios by Carlo Gozzi, the 18th-century master of the silly story. But while Puccini turned Gozzi’s Eastern fable into a semi-tragic chinoiserie, which has gone on to conquer the world, Prokofiev’s opera, while truer to the spirit of its commedia origin, is still a relative rarity. Ever since its Chicago premiere (oddly given in French as L’amour des Trois Oranges, due to the composer’s poor grasp of English), critics have picked on it for its absence of arias and a tendency to blink-and-you’ll-miss-it lyricism. Like Chinese food, they complain, it doesn’t fill you up. Well, maybe the 21st century will be kinder. Given the current collision between our appetite for entertainment and our diminishing attention spans, perhaps its time is now? Either way, Opera Australia’s timely revival of Francesca Zambello’s witty, well-informed production, first seen in 2005, offers the work as good a chance as any to be appreciated.

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