Women's dreams in opera style | Review of 'Girls from Naples' performed by Les Femmes

On July 28th, the premiere of 'Girls from Naples' performed by the opera group 'Les Femmes' and two instrumentalists took place on the Internet. The show is gaining popularity.

It starts rationally. Mezzo-soprano, Emilia Osowska, brilliantly performs a song composed specifically to highlight the uniqueness of her voice by Luciano Berio. It is easy to notice the amusement of the performers of 'Girls from Naples', as they use 'La donna ideale', which Berio wrote for his wife, to learn what kind of wife a man should look for to make him happy: well-born, with a dowry, manners, and beauty. Strong entrance!

She responds with the words of Gilda from Verdi's opera Rigoletto, Natalia Krajewska-Kitowska (lyric soprano), subtly highlighting the poetic story of emerging love. Emilia looks at her, shaking her head in disbelief. When she joins with the aria of Arsilda (Vivaldi) coloratura soprano Joanna Sobowiec-Jamioł, who portrays a lonely queen dreaming of love, the situation could be considered grotesque, or at best the beginning of a feminist discourse, in which the view of the nature and status of women clashes with their education - things happen in the kitchen (sic!) - and even the idea of marriage. It is also an image of three young women in a period of transition, between the freedom of childhood and the demands of adulthood, with dreams of love that, of course, must end in marriage. And each of the heroines of this exquisite translation (Italian pasticcio) strives for such a resolution.

Sensuality is emphasized by the impressionistic scenography, referring to famous paintings and the play of light, colors, where the symbolic clashes with the real. The same goes for the costumes: three village girls, dressed in everyday white embroidered blouses and flowing skirts, increasingly ecstatically transform into Cinderellas at the ball, waiting for their suitors and the bride. The opera crosses the boundary set by art, breaks the rule of convention, abandons fiction, and appeals to the hard, tangible reality. Women are themselves (in everyday attire), playing themselves, but also playing themselves, their dreams, expectations, and their experience becomes super-individual, universal. By playing themselves and themselves (but separated, different) all the time they play. We are in a world of dreams, enveloped in the play of emotional singing. Art against truth, but life is also art. The only difference is that through art, truth is also expressed. Because what is most important is not in the plot, but in the nuances, music, moods, images, mime, discreetly expressed emotions.

It is also a story of ars vivendi, a kind of collection of advice on how to live to achieve happiness. The girls are not afraid of dreams, not afraid of colliding with harsh life. Their singing is moving, energizing, also thanks to the emotional play of Piotr Jamioł (violin) and Arkadiusz Farkowski (piano), embodying the young suitors of the Neapolitan girls.

When can true art be created? Let's use Witkacy's remarks: one must possess the appropriate artistic talent, the ability to create a work with the values of a work of art, a well-grounded, comprehensive worldview, 'seeing through' beyond epic narration and possible to be reproduced by the interpreter. All these qualities are fulfilled by 'Girls from Naples' by Les Femmes!

The performers of the roles are excellent creators and interpreters at the same time! They have achieved a separate musical-acting skill, which could be called rhapsodic, because they can extract hidden thoughts and beauty from well-known compositions so effectively that they hypnotize listeners in their own way. They are magicians, good spirits of music. They leave the viewer in euphoria and contemplation of the fate of women and the condition of the world.

These tastefully performed pasticcio arias (from Italian pasticcio) are an exceptional feast for the ear and eye. The story may seem banal, but told through the music of Italian composers from the 19th and 20th centuries, it transports us to a fairy-tale world vibrating with shades of emotions, the power of detail, and the delicacy of sighs and refined humor. It is worth watching on the Internet. The performance is available for free on YouTube. Watch it, and I assure you that the next step will be to buy one of Les Femmes' albums: 'Polish Landscape' or the lighter 'In a Small Cinema'.