ELLEN Kent of Dual Control International opera touring agency wants to give me a know what history of Moldavia. "People don't it is they say, what is this Moldavia? and it's putting them off going to see the show."
As it happens, I'm not too well up on Moldavia either but preliminary researches having revealed that this tiny ex-Russian republic has a history stretching back to the dawn of civilisation and beyond I fear I'm in for a long story.
Luckily, it emerges that we need concern ourselves only with that part of Moldavian history following the second World War, when a large chunk of eastern Romania was given to the Soviet Union. The Russians promptly banned the teaching of Romanian in schools and colonised the area with as many ethnic Russians as possible all the little tricks we now think of as the process known as "Sovietisation".
One of the less painful aspects of this, however, was the setting up of lavishly funded opera and ballet companies complete with luscious, imposing opera houses and thus the Moldavian National Opera, begun by a group of enthusiastic actors and singers in the republic's capital, Khishinev, grew into one of the largest artistic institutions in the Eastern Bloc, second in importance, Ellen Kent maintains, only to the Kirov. "This is what worries me when people say they've never heard of Moldavia," she says. "Because they don't realise what they're getting the history behind it the fact this is a big company with impeccable artistic credentials, not a little tin pot group from eastern Europe. Lot of those going around, unfortunately."
So are we clear about Moldavia? An independent republic which is, at present, part of neither Russia nor Romania but has very strong links to both. And why do we need to know this? Because the Moldavian National Opera is making its first visit to these islands shortly, and will be presenting a double bill of popular opera at the Cork Opera House on May 14th and 15th. And not just any old popular opera, but "Cav and Pag", aka Leoncavallo's Cavalleria Rusticana and Mascagni's I Pagliacci, which has to be one of the most popular operatic double acts in the standard repertoire. "I was very, very impressed with the Moldavian Opera production of `Cav and Pag' when I went to Khishinev," says Ellen Kent. "It's a very sophistica tedopera house with 900 or more people working there, very forward looking artistic directors, very open to new ideas. And not only do they have these big, big voices but what I liked about them was that the acting was up to the singing. Sometimes you get rather stiff acting, but not with this company.
While it's very much an ensemble show, a team effort altogether, about 100 Moldavians will be coming to Ireland Ellen Kent is particularly delighted about the participation of the Russian conductor Alexandru Samoila, whom she describes as "electrifying", and the Romanian tenor Ionel Voineag, will sing Turridu in Cavalleria Rusticana.
. The Moldovian National Opera is at the Cork Opera House on Tuesday, May 14th and Wednesday, May 15th.
