Viva la Mamma is a delirious backstage peek at a doomed opera production. Donizetti's dizzy, uproarious, slapstick farce is a delicious take on the follies and foibles of opera life. The conventional "theatre within a theatre" allows the director to laugh to his heart's content at the nature of theatre and its typical, indispensable characters: the capricious prima donna and her pandering husband, the director forever preoccupied with financial problems, the visiting tenor from distant Russia paid in foreign currency and the domineering stage mother determined to see her daughter sing a larger role. When the cast discovers that the producer can't pay them, Mamma Agatha puts up the money, and in the process, lands herself a part. Donizetti wrote the role of the formidable Mamma Agatha for a baritone, creating in the process the most hilarious drag role in opera.
