NORMA – BELLINI
Presented on Mar 28, 31, Apr 3 at the National Concert Hall, Dublin as part of the Dublin Grand Opera Society’s Spring Season
Suzanne Murphy – Norma
Angela Feeney – Adalgisa
Osvaldo di Pianduni – Pollione
Giancarlo Boldrini – Oroveso
Paul McCann – Flavio
Marie Walshe – Clothilde
Roderick Brydon – Conductor
Michael McCaffery – Director
Listen to this production here:
Listen to an audience recording here (made on opening night, 28th March 1989)
Fragments from these “Norma” performances were recorded – both in performance and backstage – for a documentary on Suzanne Murphy
NORMA IN REHEARSAL
Michael McCaffery’s choice of Bellini’s masterpiece “Norma” for the spring season of 1989 gave the society another resounding success. Because the Gaiety Theatre was unavailable it was decided to stage the opera in the National Concert Hall and alternate it with a Viennese concert programme. The fact that Suzanne Murphy was to sing Norma aroused considerable interest and tickets were snapped up. The society was creating a precedent in paying the soprano the highest fee in its history. Up to then the £1,500 a performance paid to Giuseppe di Stefano in the sixties was a record. ‘We wanted Suzanne for the role and we were prepared to pay the fee asked by her agent,’ said Donnie Potter. ‘We knew also our patrons and friends wanted to hear her in a part that she had sung so successfully with Welsh National Opera.’ She told me later she had asked the DGOS if Angela Feeney could sing the role of Adalgisa in the opera and this was agreed. ‘Angela and I wanted to make the production our tribute to Ronnie Dunne for all she had done for our voices in the past. She had followed our careers and attended performances in Cardiff, London and elsewhere.’ Suzanne says she enjoyed the “Norma” rehearsals and she had no worries about singing in the National Concert Hall. Italian designer Ulderico Manani’s visual flair resolved the problems of dressing the hall with an appropriate set; it rose sharply over the choir seats giving the stage a marvellous three-dimensional appearance. The first night reminded me of those exciting DGOS evenings in the sixties with the Gaiety audiences full of expectancy at the prospect of hearing Rinaldi, Zeani or Cappuccilli. Suzanne Murphy rose to the occasion, as did Angela Feeney and the rest of the cast. No one was more delighted by her success than Michael McCaffery as they had worked well in rehearsal. ‘She was in radiant voice,’ he said later, ‘and the good hall acoustic did the rest. Looking back, I think we could have charged more for the best seats. In view of the demand for tickets we would have got £40 instead of £3O.’
(Extracted from “Love and Music: The Glorious History of the Dublin Grand Opera Society” by Gus Smith, 1998)
Opera in Ireland 