What would a family do if a total stranger pitched up on their doorstep to announce that the eldest son's supposedly virginal fiancee was really a whore? This is the starting point of Francesco Cilea's L'Arlesiana, first performed in 1897 and now something of a rarity. Overshadowed by his contemporary, Puccini, Cilea is often classified with him as a "naturalist", though his quirky theatrical sense and fascination with subjects dealing with the nature of truth, reality and illusion curiously mark him out as a precursor of Pirandello.
The erotic tales about the unseen, titular "woman from Arles" are brought by one Metifio to a seemingly respectable Provençal farming family. No one thinks to question Metifio's veracity - nor do we discover if he is telling the truth - but, under the weight of his revelations, the rot behind the family's facade heaves to the surface. The widowed mother, Rosa Mamai, is shown to have an almost incestuous fixation with her son Federico, the potential bridegroom. Her obsessive desire to "cure" Federico of his attachment to the woman from Arles leads her effectively to pimp for him, trying unsuccessfully to persuade her goddaughter Vivetta, who loves Federico, to throw herself at him. Federico, dominated by his mother and mentally unstable to the last, commits suicide after developing bizarre fantasies that he is a she-goat protecting her kids from a devouring wolf.
Cilea, however, was not always up to dealing with this tricky, pre-Freudian subject. Despite moments of heady lyricism, the opera takes an age to get going, though Cilea compensates for the slow start with a final act that leaves you feeling shattered. The conventional need for a leading soprano role, meanwhile, forces Vivetta into a position of musical prominence that the drama cannot always support.
Opera Holland Park has done wonders with the opera, however. Jamie Hayes's production, relocating it to the 1920s, has tremendous simplicity and clarity, never tips into melodrama and keeps you hooked even when Cilea's inspiration dips. Charles Peebles's conducting has a brooding sensuality, and the cast is excellent, dominated by Rosalind Plowright's stridently hysterical Rosa and Sean Ruane's handsome, scarily disturbed Federico. Kate Ladner is a vulnerable Vivetta and Nicholas Todorovic a dangerously sexual Metifio. The whole is a lesson in how to make an opera that is by no means a masterpiece come vividly alive.
· In rep until July 18. Box office: 0845-230 9769.
