Cleopatra Crashes Havisham's Would-Be Wedding

A Double Bill of Monodramas:

Argento’s Miss Havisham’s Wedding Night

Berlioz’s La mort de Cléopâtre

On Site Opera

The Harmonie Club

September 30, 2016

A bold pairing: Aurelia and Cleopatra
Photo credit: On Site Opera

It was a misty evening. The street glistened and traffic was backed up down Fifth Avenue under an incessant drizzle. When we arrived at the historic Harmonie Club on East 60th Street, I half expected Dorothy Parker to greet us, or Eleanor Roosevelt to take my coat. We were ushered through the elegant lobby and up to the second floor ballroom, where the ceiling was all rosette studded wood inlay and the chandeliers exuded the old New York refinement of another era. We were showed to our table that was set in grand fashion for a multicourse dinner service. It was as though we stumbled into a proper wedding reception. Though at the same time, something wasn’t right: cobwebs covered the wedding cake, the mantle pieces on either end of the salon were caked in dust, and the floral centerpieces on each of the tables were beautifully arranged but all the flowers were withering (artfully) away. Waiters came around with red and white wine and the feeling of excitement was palpable. It was after all Miss Havisham’s much anticipated wedding night (with a nod to Dickens).

A haunting stage is set and you're in it
Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco

First up, Berlioz’s La mort de Cléopâtre – an intense soliloquy in music. I came in wondering how they might carry it off in a space like this. The score takes us on the whirlwind of emotions that buffets the great fallen queen during her final moments of life.

Gaissert goes Cleopatra á la Alma-Tadema
Photo credit: On Site Opera

In the role of Cleopatra, mezzo Blythe Gaissert moved violently yet gracefully about the room as if possessed. She embodied Berlioz’s heroine with fervor. It’s such a moving piece especially when in the middle passages the cellos kick in and send the emotions into the lower more guttural range of the mezzo’s voice – deep and sad and chesty. It tore at my heart. There were at least three moments in the twenty or so minute long piece in which I found myself on the verge of tears, if only the tempo allowed me the catharsis. Instead the piece pushes on and we move into the next movement of the emotional rollercoaster that is Cleopatra’s demise. So moving, so beautiful.

Who got the snakes out?
Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco

We were privy to Cleopatra’s in extremis breakdown. And she sang it as if we weren’t there. Amazing. And if the moment before the suicide was not dramatic enough, Ms. Gaissert pulled out a real snake! The live-reptile move definitely helped shake up anybody in the audience who may have drifted off and served to refocus their attention on Cleopatra’s every syllable (and gesture, god forbid she lose her grip on the snake). The scene played out like an Alma-Tadema painting. It had me tingling all over. And left me wanting more.

Gaissert showed us her stuff. She sounded deep and powerful, like a woman who is used to being in control. And she moved about the room with self-assurance and pride, but on the verge of annihilation. It was frenzied, yet totally called for. 

Berlioz’s setting of this text was composed in 1829 for a competition during his apprenticeship, when he was up and coming in the music world. I have always found it dramatically satisfying. I was curious to see how they might adapt it not to a recital or a proscenium but to a site-specific ballroom space. It was intriguing. Though we were all seated in a wedding dinner fashion, it was as though we were silently eavesdropping on her. Very dramatic. 

Here comes the bride
Photo credit: On Site Opera

While I wasn’t worried about the musical qualities of the Berlioz, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the second piece on the bill, this more recent and completely unknown work by Dominick Argento, Miss Havisham’s Wedding Night. On my way there under the rain, I had prepared to brace myself for anything, but after Cléopâtre my guard was down and I was open to whatever might come.

Madness sets in
Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco

And come she did. Miss Havisham burst into ballroom where we were all seated for her cake and champagne reception, though she was more of a nervous wreck than her predecessor. She scurried around the room, like Cleopatra, as though we weren’t there – skittish, delusional and disturbed. Soprano Leah Partridge sounded great, with very dynamic, at times almost syncopated singing.  And even looked the part, as she vaguely resembled her Helen Bonham-Carter incarnation from the famous movie based on the same Dickens novel with a slight Julianne Moore thing going on there too. She was striking both as an actress and vocally. Her instrument was happily strident to match the shrill madness of the character but also full and expressive, pliant and versatile so as to better flesh out the many twists and turns poor Miss Havisham undergoes over the course of reliving her wedding night meltdown (presumably years after the fact).

A love lost but not forgotten
Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco

Argento’s score was surprisingly pleasant from start to finish, all while rendering musically the character's violent mood swings. Thank God he didn’t feel the need to go over the top in terms of the setting of the human voice against the orchestration just for the sake of being weird. Instead I feel like he adhered much more closely the mode that I came to appreciate in David Lang’s recent visionary operatic character study. Thanks to The Loser I came to think of Miss Havisham’s Wedding Night as more of a dramatic monologue – this after all is the story of one of literature’s real losers, in a manner of speaking. The orchestration helped the soprano to achieve a sort of soliloquy that was expressive of a range of emotions that ran the gamut from delusion to anticipation and then from despair to the return of hope and back again. Though the overall takeaway was schizophrenic, the music remained contained and took her state of mind seriously throughout. Argento's approach was compassionate and humanistic and so ultimately even more tragic which is the nature of the poor Miss Havisham character in the novel, a woman who still nevertheless commands our sympathies despite her overarching eccentricities. It is a very subtle setting on the part of the composer, which was very tightly and tactfully interpreted by the orchestra under the baton of Geoffrey McDonald.

A lavish affair
Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco

Both singers were of the utmost refinement, not to mention impeccably made up and dressed, and the space was truly next level. Eric Einhorn's direction was solid and made a good use of the space. In a stroke of genius, towards the end of Miss Havisham's delirious performance, he had Cleopatra come back in and have tea with the the crazy bride, almost as if the Egyptian queen was one of the many hallucinations of a disturbed mind. The ballroom of the Harmonie Club was decorated to perfection and the wood paneling provided great acoustics, too. And the lighting, oh, the lighting was phenomenal. It subtly shifted as the piece slowly shifted tones from desperation to the return of hope and back again. The shadows they cast as a result were strikingly suggestive. It was haunting yet grandiose, beautiful and unsettling all at once. On Site Opera spared no expense on this one and every detail was meticulously executed and visually stunning. Even the program was cleverly conceived of as that of Aurelia Havisham’s wedding to one Matthew Compeyson. This ranked up there with the most successful of On Site's efforts. The whole package was just of such extraordinary and extravagant polish that it was clear that this company has money (and from time to time knows how to use it). The wilted centerpieces, silk lace tablecloths and four glasses per guest alone must have not been cheap, not to mention insurance for that live snake! The attention to detail in creating such an immersive parallel universe is definitely praiseworthy, especially when all other key aspects of the production are equally solid. 

Set dressings caked in cobwebs
Photo credit: Allegri con Fuoco

Of everything we’ve seen from them this ranks right up there with the Paisiello they did at the Fabbri Mansion last year, only in that case there were even more moving parts. But like tonight there they also stuck to the exotic European language of the original, which is an absolute must. I only wish they would take a hint from successes like these and give us Mozart’s La finta giardiniera, which they announced for the spring, in the original rather than another bastardized English translation. The public is not that dumb, there is no need for English adaptations! Please give us La finta giardiniera in the original! Nevertheless, the company’s first-ever original commission will be a community-oriented piece that is to be performed in the dinosaur wing of the Natural History Museum. Not to be missed!

– Lui & Lei

Figaro Redivivus

Marcos Portugal’s The Marriage of Figaro (1799)

(La pazza giornata, ovvero Il matrimonio di Figaro)

On Site Opera

632 on Hudson

June 17, 2016

Cinque, dieci, ventisei: Figaro measures where it counts
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov

Lui: The second installment of On Site Opera’s Figaro Project. After last year’s extraordinarily well executed unearthing of Paisiello’s Barbiere di Siviglia, this time around they’re dusting off an utterly neglected version of part two in the Beaumarchais trilogy set to music by Marco Portugal just some fifteen years after the Da Ponte-Mozart masterpiece based on the same material.

The venue of the wedding

Lei: The venue, 632 on Hudson is a unique hidden gem located in the transitional area between the western edge of the West Village and the Meatpacking district. A 19th century building, former sausage factory converted into eccentric exquisitely decorated villa. We happen to know the space and were intrigued by how it would get used as it is a triplex with a rooftop garden and the most delicious speakeasy bar in the basement. While they could have gone the whole immersive route á la “Sleep No More,” i.e. there’s always something happening and the public is free to roam and stop where it pleases (be it the main action or some minor detail), this production had the scenes set in three rooms of the venue (kitchen, living room and atrium), each time with rows of chairs for the 50 patrons occupying most of each used room so that the public sat in an orderly fashion and moved with each scene change. The idea seemed to be vaguely that the opera’s public played the part of the invitees to Susanna and Figaro’s wedding, which worked perfectly well in the actual wedding scene, where we even got sweet treats and a shot of Madeira! All in all Eric Einhorn’s “stage” direction was clever as he put the space of the villa to good use. It would have been amazing if they managed to use the planted rooftop garden for the final scene but I guess the logistics of it were too challenging.

Non più andrai farfallone amoroso (just kidding!)
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov

Lui: As we arrived everyone was already in character. Cherubino was out on the sidewalk, grease flying while eating a piece of pizza decked out like a modern day millennial with a hoodie and his headphones around his neck. As we entered a very dapper Count Almaviva welcomed us on the stairs. Susanna was bickering with Bartolo about her voice lesson. Antonio was already drinking from a flask. And Figaro was running around doing busy butler-like stuff. Talk was already in the air of the day’s wedding festivities and it truly felt like stepping into somebody’s beautiful home in the middle of a busy day.

The layers are palpable like reflections of reflections
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov

Lei: On Site Opera’s production of Portugal’s work went through a double layer of adaptations. First, the original Italian libretto was translated into English, with arias translated by Gilly French and Jeremy Gray and dialogue translated and adapted by Joan Holden. I always cringe when this happens since if something was composed to Italian words, it will always sound much worse in English no matter how clever and careful the translation. While I get the challenge of projecting supertitles when the opera is a movable feast around a mansion, still there can be ways to deal with it. As a compromise, one could do recitatifs in English and keep the arias in the original Italian, which could be awkward, yes, but not less than hearing an opera that seems quasi bel canto sung in English.

Cross-dressing the young soldier
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov

In addition, the score was re-arranged for a band comprised of orchestral instruments (violin, cello, oboe, and clarinet) alongside instruments found in a traditional Portuguese fado ensemble (accordion, guitar, and the Portuguese guitarra). The idea seems to be to “honor the composer’s elegance of musical phrase and crisp comic timing while, at the same time, evoking his heritage.” Without having any recordings of the original, it’s hard to tell how much this arrangement kept of Portugal’s work and how much it departed from it. While I found the re-arranged music pleasant, it was not particularly impressive or memorable. And the special local flavors of Portuguese fado did not really come through (at least from where we were sitting).

Lui: I just don’t see the point in bastardizing an already bastardized copy of a brilliant original. The whole experience left me wondering to what extent what we heard tonight was the lackluster product of Marcos Portugal’s second-rate copy or the result of the unnecessary dumbing of it down into a working English translation. The Petrarchan nuances of Cherubino’s paradoxical icy fire lovesickness was gone. On whom was this classical trope lost: Portugal’s first-rate librettist? Or the translators of the present production? It is unlikely that it was Gaetano Rossi, a librettist who collaborated with Rossini and Donizetti in works such as Semiramide and Linda di Chamonix.

Figaro owned his environment
Photo credit: Rebecca Fey

Lei: What the singers had to perform, they performed beautifully. It’s just unfortunate they didn’t have more to work with. The acting was exceptional and the singing was highly competent. The level of engagement and professionalism of these artists was impressive, particularly as they had to basically learn their roles from scratch and with no recordings. The English in and of itself, though not ideal, in their capable hands it was much more pleasant than expected.

Jesse Blumberg’s Figaro was playful and present. He had good comic timing and composure and never took it over the top. He was a booming baritone whose mood ran the gamut from the chuckle to the bellyful laugh.

Almaviva's acting chops on display
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov

Lui: Tenor David Blalock was the only cast member who was back for more, reprising his role as Count Almaviva, this time acting as the lone umbilical cord character in this sequel. Everyone else was new to the trilogy. Blalock’s acting was so impressive that I initially thought he was another singer, maybe his brother (David Blalock, also a tenor) as in last year’s Barbiere he was youthful, goofy and lovey dovey. Here Blalock looked more mature, sure of himself, entitled and slightly threatening, really a sensational actor. His imposing brow and commanding gaze made him an intimidating padrone. Unlike in the Mozart, where the Count becomes a baritone after having been written as a tenor in both Paisiello’s and Rossini’s take on part one in the trilogy, Portugal keeps him as a tenor. Blalock grounds his bright instrument in a deeper sound. Bright on the edges, but brash and manly when he has to be.

Lei: It seems like Portugal wrote the most challenging and showy arias for Susanna as he had a particularly exceptional soprano available for the role. Jeni Houser was indeed the singer with the flashiest arias, from quick fire coloratura in Act I to more ecstatic and dramatic contemplation in Act III (the equivalent of Mozart’s “Deh vieni, non tardar”). Houser, who has a bright lively instrument, portrayed Susanna with fiery petulant flair and was particularly impressive in the ensembles that she helped carry and sustain.

Susanna holds forth in disguise
Photo credit: Michelle Agins / New York Times

Lui: Soprano Melissa Wimbish as Cherubino was perhaps the most effervescent of all. She was a pleasure to watch as she flitted about leaving a mess in her wake as she fell in love with anything of the feminine sex with a pulse. With her tuft of curly hair and her big eyes taking the world in around her, Wimbish charismatically embodied everybody’s favorite pageboy with joyful pizzazz. Her soprano also moved effortlessly from the spoken dialogue to passages of extreme lyrical beauty.

Cherubino as a young millennial with his bride
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov

Lei: Though her initial “Porgi amor” aria had been replaced with something more along the lines of her later “Dove sono i bei momenti” piece, Portugal’s countess is just as lovelorn and lonely as her Mozartian counterpart. Soprano Camille Zamora sang her with great melancholic feeling and embodied beautifully the Countess’ elegance and heartache.

Maestro Geoffrey McDonald used his 7-piece ensemble sparingly. His approach seemed to be that of using the instrumentalists as a form of support for the singers. The musicians never overwhelmed the vocalists. In fact, it hardly ever even called explicit attention to itself. Despite the exotic local southern Spanish flair of some of the instrumentation, these little touches and colors never distracted from the main flow of the action.

Situation comedy though never slapstick
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov

Lui: Maybe because of the English translation, but this often came across like the sit-com version of a great opera. The whole thing followed so closely the plot points of the Da Ponte-Mozart masterpiece (and their shared source material in Beaumarchais) that it left you longing for the superior version. On our way home, rather than singing what we heard, we found ourselves singing the timeless melodies, duets and arias that were missing. The ones that make Mozart the genius he is. The story was virtually the same from moment to moment with really just a few inversions and cuts. So when it came to classic moments in the Mozart score, I found myself rising expectantly to see what Portugal would do for example with Figaro’s big misogynist aria at the end of what was here Act III. But nothing of the sort came about. Either On Site’s adaptation gave us a politically correct version or else Portugal censored himself. It is such an unknown work that I can’t say with any certainty.

The same went for Almaviva’s classic class warfare aria. When it came time for him to switch gears into suspecting that his servants might be putting one over on him, I was gearing up to hear something along the lines of the fiery righteous aristocratic rage that comes out in “Vedrò mentr’io sospiro / felice un servo mio,” but nothing of the sort came about. All of the class rage had been cut out.

The huge Act II finale
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov

There was just one exception to this general diminishing of Mozart as a model. The big Act II finale was an octet here, upping the ante on Mozart’s famous finale. I have to hand it to everyone involved in this scene from the musicians to all eight of the singers. This was a very impressive piece of layered operatic theater. It amounted to one moment in which the copy matched its illustrious forebears.

Lei: I just don’t get the point of this little exercise. Why not just do the Mozart in the original language but in a chamber site specific setting and call it a day. It would still be novel and unique and I guarantee the public would be mesmerized. It is a masterpiece after all and not without good reason. Portugal’s opera, again unclear whether as originally written or as adapted for this show, sadly just did not seem that good. While I totally get the academic interest of unearthing forgotten jewels from the past, Portugal’s opera is just not a jewel and it’s way too close to one of the greatest operas of all times to come out alive. It is unfortunate because On Site Opera clearly has access to plenty of resources and excellent artists that could all be put to better use.

Opera in your lap
Photo credit: Pavel Antonov

Lui: This truly was opera in your lap though. It was noble in its intention and mostly great in its execution but ultimately a wasted effort. Sorry to say. We caught the final performance of the run and the second one of the night, which did not allow for time to roam around the venue before the beginning of the show, unfortunately. The prospect seemed promising when we arrived. Everyone had a big smile plastered on their faces as the 6:30 show filed out onto the twilit West Village street. Something must have been working at least for them.

The whole experience tonight gave me a greater appreciation of the truly noble and noteworthy effort of the Vertical Player Repertory’s highly laudable excavation in their initiative to unearth Pacini’s all but forgotten bel canto masterpiece Malvina di Scozia. Now that was a worthwhile venture into the dusty annals of oblivion. To bring a discovery like Malvina to light is truly something to get excited about. While Portugal’s Marriage of Figaro was indeed good fun and the cast was truly top notch, this little excursion with On Site Opera left much to be desired. Nevertheless, we’re optimistic about the third installment in the Beaumarchais trilogy slated for production sometime next year.

– Lei & Lui

Art deco lounge doubles as Rosina's boudoir
Photo credit: 632 on Hudson

Propitious stars over the nuptial couple
Photo credit: 632 on Hudson

Dell'Arte's Rosina Trilogy

Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble

Summer 2015 Beaumarchais Trilogy

Baruch Performing Arts Center

Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble presents the Rosina saga.

Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble is back and more ambitious than ever. Artistic director Christopher Fecteau and his team have grown the company and brought us the most extensive summer festival to date, featuring three fully staged productions, two of which are relative rarities, and a Beaumarchais-themed concert. This time around they tackled one of the trajectories of the Figaro trilogy, or, in this case, what they’re calling the Rosina trilogy.

Rosina and her count unite.
Photo credit: Mark Baker

Il barbiere di Siviglia (1782)

Music by Giovanni Paisiello

Libretto by Giuseppe Petrosellini

August 15, 2015

Rather than start with Rossini’s more canonically performed version of Il barbiere di Siviglia, the first installment of the trilogy, Dell’Arte opted for the lesser known but no less delightful version of the same story by Giovanni Paisiello. And thank goodness, because really Rossini’s take gets overplayed. 

Of the three shows in the run, this one, sadly, was the weakest link. The production was overwrought with crazy costuming and elaborate makeup decisions that distracted from both the music and the story. Several of the singers seemed to have more of a background in musical theater than extensive exposure to operatic singing, and this showed. 

What Dell'Arte has always done well is keep to the basics and build from their strengths (musical excellence and effective direction), which has always allowed them to cover up any hint of amateurishness. Unfortunately, this maiden voyage in the trilogy just wasn't entirely the case. 

The Count and his hoodwinking schemes.
Photo credit: Mark Baker

Rosina (1980)

Music by Hiram Titus

Libretto by Barbara Field

August 28, 2015

Hiram Titus’s Rosina, which we saw second though it technically comes third in the trilogy, was the most exciting discovery of the series, and it was thought-provoking as a foray into “modern” opera. It turns out that it is not inspired by Beaumarchais’ original third installment at all and instead is the brainchild of the composer and his librettist, the playwright Barbara Field. And it is in many ways a product of its time.

Cherubino sings of times gone by.
Photo credit: Mark Baker

The setting is Madrid just a few years after the conclusion of Le nozze di Figaro, though Figaro and Susanna are nowhere to be found. Cherubino is an artist now, trying to make ends meet, and the Countess, Rosina, has abandoned her husband and run off with Cherubino whose child she has recently born. The opera opens in their humble garret as Cherubino puts the finishing touches on his latest painting, a Madonna and child portrait of Rosina and their infant son. It is Beaumarchais meets Puccini’s La boheme, in all its effects.

The whole opening section is mostly sung through, a nod to verismo, and punctuated by an exposition-heavy aria, in which Cherubino recounts some of their well-known backstory, which then evolves into a love duet between the artist and his lover Rosina. But the composer gives us hints early on that something isn’t quite right. Their duet features a plaintive, slightly off kilter oboe accompaniment that clues the audience in to the fact that the Countess isn’t in the right place. This is not where she belongs. Which is in fact precisely where the opera will eventually end up at the end of Act II a couple of hours later.

The libretto often borrows from the tradition of musical theater, even though Titus’s score is largely classically inspired. The whole package was far less modern and dissonant than I would have expected from a piece composed in the late 1970s and had it’s debut in 1980. Musically many moments resonate with echoes of Rossini and Mozart, especially in terms of its basic compositional form, which covers all of the classic bases from arias and duets to quartets. The end of Act I even climaxed in a sextet finale. It doesn't get much more classic than that. 

Cherubino and Rosina in love.
Photo credit: Karen Rich

The story may not fit squarely into the original Beaumarchais trilogy, but the message is perhaps just as counterculture as its revolutionary source material. The bourgeois individualist spirit in Beaumarchais is countered with an anti-establishment, anti-patriarchal energy that is of the independent feminist ilk in Barbara Field’s libretto. “From now on choices shall be pragmatic,” Rosina sings in the final finale at the end of Act II. When she agrees to return to the fold with the Count, she does so on the condition that she remain free of useless vows and will be free to reconsider her commitment at anytime. Call it a post-nup, or a pre-re-nup. Excellent soprano Marie Masters played this modern lady and carried the show. We discovered this singer in Dell’Arte’s production of Salieri’s Falstaff last year where Ms. Masters was a feisty force of nature as Ms. Ford. It was impressive to see her acting range in such a different and more mature character as Titus’s Rosina, all while confirming her vocal talents as a very promising bright soprano.  

In short, the Countess is done slumming it with a starving young artist no matter how charming he is. It’s time for a return to pragmatism, which is strangely prescient of Regan-era bourgeois values coupled with a renewed sense of her worth as an independent woman that bespeaks the Equal Rights Amendment movement of the time too. She is ready to return to the comforts of her life with the Count. The vie bohemienne just wasn’t doing it for her: schlepping water up to the garret, living on next to nothing, never able to afford the rent, constantly bothered by an unkempt and mustachioed landlady requesting payment, and a million other minor torments. She opts for her old life back. Though, she insists, now a worldly wise and independent willed woman, that she will go back to the Count only if he agrees to take her back with her bastard child and without the false vows of matrimony, no claims of eternal love, no promises that nobody can keep. Theirs will be a relationship of convenience that they are equally and independently engaged in. She even goes so far as to pass off her ruby ring, a memento from her initial wedding day, to the count’s ex-courtesan lover who has fallen in love with Cherubino and who will stay on with him (a nod to the Mozartian/DaPontian trick of switching couples?).

Pilar, Mendoza, Amparo, Cherubino and Rosina weather the storm.
Photo credit: Karen Rich

Rosina may be stronger now, but what happened to the grudge between Cherubino and the Conte. It has vanished here. If this was conceived as a sequel to The Marriage of Figaro, the second installment of the original trilogy, it blatantly disregards the premise of Beaumarchais’s third play (The Guilty Mother) that is supposed to take place about twenty years after The Marriage of Figaro and so about seventeen years after Titus and Field’s installment in the Figaro saga. One of the plot points that they do take up though is that Cherubino and the Countess end up having a love tryst, the result of which is in fact the love child at the center of The Guilty Mother. But, in the Beaumarchais, it was an affair that lasted only a night while the Count was away for business. They never ran away together and Cherubino never becomes a starving artist La Boheme-style. In fact, their son, Leon, is raised as the Count’s lawful progeny, even if the Count doubts his legitimacy. None of this would square up with the premise of this opera. The big reveal that Leon is in fact the love child of Cherubino and Rosina is at the center of the dramatic reconciliation of the Beaumarchais play, a twist that is rendered impossible by the fact that the Count is already accepting his wife and her bastard child back into his palace by the end of Field’s Rosina.

Elizabeth Bouk as Amparo.
Photo credit: Mark Baker

Barbara Field’s libretto demonstrates a solid grounding in classic drama conventions. Two of the main plot lines revolve around getting the girl back and getting the ring back. For Cherubino (here played with passion by tenor Christopher Lilley) the task at hand, the objective of his “master plan,” is to retrieve the ring he wasn’t supposed to pawn and return it to its rightful owner without her knowing that it’s gone. And, for the Count (Min Gu Yeo, a beautiful sounding baritone) the action revolves around getting his wife back.

Characters like Señor Mendoza (Korland Simmons) and the landlady Pilar (Kerry Gotschall) are walking archetypes to be employed to comic ends. The landlady’s susceptibility to flattery is one of the plot devices and the source of one of its funniest moments that was convincingly played. Simmons has a deft, happy-go-lucky sense of comic timing and an all around pleasing demeanor on stage that made him fun to watch. As he is prodded to lavish many ornate declarations of love on Gotschall’s mustachioed Pilar by being blindfolded, he gushes forth a profusion of flowery language thinking he was simply alone with his beloved Rosina. The blindfold only comes off once the set piece has gone too far. It is basic slapstick humor very gracefully executed.

Titus’s score is obviously in dialogue with his Mozartian and Rossinian forebears. His musical vocabulary rarely features the alienating dissonance of much modern music. Beautiful moments abound like the line in the contrabasso when Amparo the courtesan (Elizabeth Bouk) steps up to tell her life story in all frankness. But it kind of came out of nowhere, relying on an awkward transition to get there.

Amparo opens up about her sordid past.
Photo credit: Karen Rich

The narrative and dramatic vocabulary of the libretto, on the other hand, is less fluent and frequently lacks tact. Characters often state too much: the scourge of modern opera. Thinking of Mozart and the perfection of Da Ponte’s poetry makes much of the language here that the music is meant to serve seem baggy or trite. “The rent is spent,” was a particularly uninspired turn of phrase – one of the zingers of the evening. The count also has an aria where he repeats “hilarious” over and over and I kept wondering: What is so hilarious? Why was it hilarious? The hilarity of the finding your wife living with another younger man escaped me. It may have been many things, but hilarious doesn’t seem to me among them. Then there were all of these pithy exclamations that packed the message of a proverb but were too wordy to be considered folk wisdom let alone to be sung. At one point we hear: “Diplomacy is the art of making your enemies face off against each other so you don’t get injured” (or something to this effect). What a mouthful! It was awfully wordy! Proverbs and folk wisdom tend to pack a slightly more succinct punch.

Le nozze di Figaro (1786)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 

Libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte

August 29, 2015

Rosina croons Porgi amor.
Photo credit: Dell'Arte Opera

Le nozze di Figaro was definitely the highlight of the festival. While it’s true that it’s hard for other composers and librettists to live up to the genius of the Mozart/Da Ponte combo, Dell’Arte’s rendition of Nozze was fresh and delicious, thanks to a solid cast of singers and wise direction choices.

Soprano Jennifer Townshend was an extremely compelling Countess. From the first notes of her Act II opener, Porgi amor, she had me hooked, and her Dove sono i bei momenti, in Act III, was incredibly moving and had me shedding copious tears. Dell’Arte clearly saved their hottest talent for Mozart. Olivia Betzen was a perfectly fiery Susanna who definitely helped carry the ensembles with her soaring soprano. In her duets with Townshend’s Countess, she also held her own and really gave her something to sing off and sing into. They had good chemistry as the knowing women who are able to outsmart their men since this time Figaro is out of the loop and more powerless than he was in the prequel though he is no less cocky about his quick-wittedness. 

Susanna crossdresses poor Cherubino.
Photo credit: Brian Long 

Baritone Rodolfo Nieto in the role of Figaro had a captivating stage presence and, notwithstanding some pronunciation missteps from time to time, was vocally solid throughout, particularly impressive how he managed to wrap his mouth around Figaro’s most challenging rapid fire lines particularly in Aprite un po’ gli occhi. Mezzo Heather Jones as Cherubino had excellent Italian and great acting chops, delivering the paggio’s showstopping arias with a mischievous freshness and enthusiasm that are the essence of this character. Baritone John Callison successfully played the Count as entitled arrogant and lust. His rendition of Vedrò mentre io sospiro among the highlights of the evening. Bass-baritone Michael Spaziani as Don Bartolo delivered an excellent and thundering La vendetta. After thoroughly enjoying her in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea two years ago, mezzo Alison Cheeseman didn’t have as much to work with here as she did in the role of Nero back then but she was a terrific Marcellina, both vocally and acting-wise. It is truly exciting to watch talented singers like her grow. 

As to the production and direction, the sets were essential but functional and the blocking was pretty traditional for a Nozze, doing justice to the theatrical twists and turns of the plot. In the costume department, Figaro and Susanna make their entrance in ordinary contemporary street clothes suggesting a modern take. Still, there was not much class distinction made between the upper and lower crusts as all in all the cast seemed dressed more for a rehearsal than for closing day of the run. Only the countess seems to exude an elegance pertaining to her status and class. It was also a nice touch to have her most of the time pouring herself and downing full calices of wine, so as to drown her sorrows. The casual vibe of the costumes, however, did not distract from Wolfie’s brilliant music, which the cast and Metamorphosis Orchestra embodied at a very high level. 

Rosina reunites with a repentant husband.
Photo credit: Brian Long

The nine-year-old girl sitting behind us, who was dressed in her cutest going-out-on-the-town dress, was quite thoroughly entertained. At the end of the show we overheard her saying: “Best night ever!” Not once did her attention fade as she was glued to the action all night. And so were we. The cast brought life to this masterpiece of a score with great pacing and verve. 

– Lei & Lui

Happy endings for one and all.
Photo credit: Dell'Arte Opera

Dell'Arte Opera's Artistic Director, Christopher Fecteau