Repertoire

Bună seara Domnule Wilde (Good Evening, Mr Wilde)

Alexandru Iosub

  • Romanian Opera Craiova Premiere
  • 18 aprilie 2013
  • Time Length
  • aprox. 2h, 20’– două pauze
  • Extra info
  • Spectacol în limba română

Musical comedy in two scenes, based on Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.

Music: Alexandru Iosub


“The play presents us, in the gay and unmistakable style of Oscar Wilde, who flawlessly applies in comedy the principle according to which life imitates art, not art imitates life, a story full of spirit and grace, with a happy ending, resulting in the creation of adorable English couples.

The first part of ACT I takes place in the London residence of the young gentleman and dandy Algernon. The action then moves to the countryside, at the residence of his friend Jack, who is the serious and responsible tutor of a charming young girl, Cecily, whom he tries to keep away from the temptations of London. Temptations he enjoys himself, through a highly ingenious trick. The curtain is raised to show us a scene full of verve between the two friends: they discover that, in order to be able to enjoy life and avoid their boring social obligations, each of them has invented a screen-character. Algernon has invented a friend, “Bunbury”, who should be taken care of – he throws a fit when one less expects him to! –, and Jack has invented a brother, “Earnest”, who is having fun in London and sends the expensive bills to the countryside. However, everything changes and a range of comic situations begins to unfold, as the two men fall in love with two charming young ladies, with an unmistakable English humour. Under his false identity as “Earnest”, Jack proposes marriage to Algernon’s cousin, Gwendolen, despite the opposition of his mother, Lady Bracknell, a monument of high-life pretence of a flawless ridicule and involuntary humour. Since the pretender’s interrogatory has shown that Jack (Earnest) was abandoned at birth, Lady Bracknell summons the wretched pretender to introduce her to at least one parent of any sex by the end of the season, otherwise he will lose Gwendolen. Jack’s desperation is dismissed by the brave and charming Gwendolen who, though she cannot influence her mother, promises to visit him in the countryside in order to find a solution. This is how Algernon finds out Jack’s countryside address and determines to conquer young Cecily, pretending to be Jack’s brother, “the party man Earnest”. This will complicate things: we now have to gentlemen pretending to be “Earnest”!

In ACT II, we remain at Jack’s countryside mansion. Algernon, still acting as Earnest, proposes marriage to Cecily and, much to his dismay, finds out that the young girl can only accept him as “Earnest”. Thus, he decides to be baptized in secrecy. The same thing happens to Jack, as he sees Gwendolen again and realizes she is worthy of all sacrifice. The comedy becomes more interesting as the two young ladies meet for tea and confide in one another about the ideal fiancée, “Earnest”. They will be horrified to find out that their ideal has vanished: their name is not “Earnest”, but an insipid Jack and a “pharmaceutical” Algernon.

Lady Bracknell pursues her daughter just as the two couples had reconciled, and the problems are renewed. Everything is cleared up with a dramatic turn of events resulting in the discovery of Jack’s true origin; the abandoned child is nothing less than Algernon’s elder brother, and their father’s name was EARNEST! The ending restores the truth and the values of youth and faith in love, and a third couple appears, the one of the doctor and the governess, to everybody’s joy.

The musical comedy Good Evening, Mr Wilde! recreates, through an intrigue guided with high accuracy, a world of the values of youth, candour, friendship, loyalty and love, in a declared conflict with forgery, financial interest and bourgeois social conventions, an eternal source of English humour.”

 

*Alina Rece – director