Past Production Reviews
4La Bohéme Composed by Giacomo Puccini Librettists Luigi Illica & Giuseppe Giacosa Conducted by Joseph Mechavich Directed by Kelly Kitchens A review by Annette Skaggs Entire contents are copyright © 2022 by Annette Skaggs. All rights reserved. We know that the past couple of years have forced our collective arts scene to pivot and make sacrifices and the Kentucky Opera was not immune to this. But, pivot they did and I know that we will all be the better for it. While the company was able to deliver some lovely performances in the past couple of seasons, the last that we had seen a “grand opera” was Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, in February 2020. But, hooray, the drought is over and the wait gave way to a satisfying and cleansing performance of La Bohéme. Executive Director Barbara Lynne Jamison, dressed in a smart rose-patterned jumpsuit, took the stage to welcome the audience to the beginning of Kentucky Opera’s (KYO) 70th season. To have reached such an anniversary takes commitment and dedication and I am happy to see that Ms. Jamison has that want and drive to push the KYO towards its first 100 years. As is common in stage addresses, it is asked who is attending their first opera and I was happy to see a few hands rise. That is a great sign. Whether you have seen La Bohéme multiple times or this is your introduction, it is difficult to walk out of the theater and not feel moved. Based on short stories and real people of Paris in the early 1800s, La Bohéme explores the lives, loves, hopes, dreams, sorrows, and losses of poet Rodolfo (Chaz’Men Williams-Ali), painter Marcello (Leroy Davis), philosopher Colline (Jason Zacher), musician Schaunard (Kyle White (a grisette named Musetta (Marquita Richardson) and the embroiderer Mimi (Shannon Jennings). While sharing a flat in Paris, the four male Bohemians, with limited means, scrape their way through each day. The quartet is forced to use the paper from Rodolfo’s papers to throw into the fire to stay warm. As the temperatures continue to drop, Schaunard bounces in with a monetary windfall, and they decide to live a little and celebrate at Café Momus. As they leave, Rodolfo stays behind to finish up a writing project only to be disrupted by a knock on the door by their neighbor Mimi, weak and coughing, who shares that her candle has gone out and hopes that it can be re-lit by Rodolfo. Darkness falls fast on the two, as does love as the couple joins the rest at the Café. As the revelry continues at the Café, Marcello sees his former lover Musetta in the company of a rich nobleman, Alcindoro (Peter Strummer), and seethes with jealousy. Seeing Marcello, Musetta devises a way to dupe her admirer and return to Marcello. As winter continues, Mimi runs to Marcello to seek advice about Rodolfo, who is under sits of jealousy and accusing her of being unfaithful, which is far from the truth. Marcello asks Rodolfo what is going on and Rodolfo confides that he still loves Mimi but knows that her illness will grow far worse because of their poverty and that she would be better off without him. Overhearing the conversation, Mimi confronts Rodolfo and the two agree to stay together through the winter. Spring comes and the four Bohemians are once again in their Paris flat, trying to scrape by. Musetta bursts through the door asking for help sharing that she found Mimi in the streets, barely alive. The friends get Mimi into the flat and lay her down and do their best to keep her warm. Seeing that she needs medical help, the group does what they can to attain a doctor and get medicine for the dying seamstress. Rodolfo and Mimi share their eternal love for one another as Musetta comes back with a muzzle to keep Mimi’s hands warm. Mimi, comfortable in warmth and surrounded by love, quietly passes, leading Rodolfo to grieve inconsolably. A beautiful happenstance with this story is that we can see those we know, if not ourselves, in these timeless characters. Who among us has not struggled some in our lives whether it was career, money, friendships, or love? And as strong as the story is, when you set it to the stunning and brilliant composition of Puccini, the story takes on a whole new level of appreciation. So much so, this work has become a part of pop culture. I’d guess that many of you could pick up Musetta’s or Mimi’s theme in any number of places, of course famously in Jonathan Larson’s Rent. The roles of Schaunard and Colline don’t get near enough time for singing, but Kyle White’s interpretation of Schaunard’s sudden wealth was fun and exciting while Jason Zacher’s solo “Vecchia zimarra” had me so beguiled that I wanted to throw money on to the stage so that he wouldn’t have to do what he’s singing about (don’t want to divulge too much). Speaking of beguiled, Peter Strummer, who has graced our stage before, was knee-slappingly funny as both Alcindoro and Benoit. Benoit was unapologetically a dirty old man and the audience was eating it up, from his bawdiness down to his dressing gown that looked like something straight out of a Looney Tunes cartoon, which, for that character, worked. New to the Kentucky Opera, Leroy Davis was delightful as Marcello. Aside from his vocal styling, he was a fun actor to watch. Whether he was analyzing his latest painting or furious and love-sick over Musetta, Davis was always in the moment. Musetta, Musetta, Musetta!! What a perfect name for her character and Marquita Richardson was living that fantasy every moment she was on stage. Intriguing and diva-esque, Richardson hit every nuance and note that I’ve grown to know Musetta to be. And that dress she wore at Café Momus, wow, great job costumer Glenn Breed and associates. Stunning. Chemistry can play an important part in roles such as Rodolfo and Mimi. Fortunately, Williams-Ali and Jennings had a good amount of that. Their duet “O soave fanciulla” in the first act, declaring the characters’ love for one another, helps to solidify the dynamic between the two. Both vocally and in presentation, it sounded and looked lovely, both were strong and easily heard. However, for both, there were times that it was hard to hear them over the orchestra, especially if they were poised further upstage. I could not hear Williams at all towards the end of the quartet “Addio dolce svegliare alla mattina!”. Despite those nuisances, I feel that both were genuine and entertaining as the fated lovers. My appreciation to director Kelly Kitchens for adding some humor to the heart-heavy opera. Watching the friends pretending to fence with each other for a piece of fish was fun, as was the playfulness in Act 1 as each makes playful jabs at each other’s chosen careers while they burn what little they have to stay warm. Act 2 has been a thorn in my side. As far as staging and singing, every time I see La Bohéme I hope to see a crowded Parisian street and café look busy without making it look messy or posed. I’d like to say that a solution was found in this production, but the scene, while entertaining and containing great moments, was fraught with musical rushing and needed to be tighter. Parpignol’s (Mark Eldred) leading of the children’s chorus like a pied [piper almost felt like an afterthought. Peter Dean Beck’s set designs and Jesse Alford’s light designs certainly lent themselves to struggling in Paris in the dead of winter. As I listened to and watched this performance, I found myself looking for frsh nuance about the opera that I had not experienced before and discovered how Ms. Kitchens approached the story, how the singers performed from the principles to the choruses, and to the talents of the production team is what is new to me and it is within their generosity of talent and time that I found that new discoveries to embrace and learn from.
Mozart’s prodigy humbles all of us. He started writing operas at an age when most of us had just learned to successfully ride a two-wheeled bicycle, so when the Elector of Bavaria commissioned him at age 24 to write Idomeneo for a court festivity, he had already composed 12 operas. Like most of the Mozart canon apart from Don Giovanni, Idomeneo scores sat on library shelves gathering dust in the 19th century, and when the opera was revived in the early 1930s, the notoriously un-humble Richard Strauss “improved” the score by adding some of his own music to it. Fortunately, Opera NEO produced a musically sparkling although spare production Mozart’s Idomeneo—without any Richard Strauss-helper—as part of this year’s Opera NEO Summer Opera Festival and Workshop at the outdoor Palisades Presbyterian Amphitheater in Allied Gardens. The plot of Idomeneo is a love triangle—the son of Cretan King Idomeneo, Idamante, is loved by both Elettra and the captured Trojan princess Ilia—tangled into Idomeneo’s soul-crushing sentence from the god of the sea Neptune, who saved Idomeneo from drowning in a storm at sea and then commanded to the king to slay the first person he encountered as the price for his rescue. And the first person he sees is his son, Idamante. The glory of this Opera NEO production is its fine cast of young singers, who confidently imbued Mozart’s flowing, impassioned lines with grace and assurance. From Ilia’s opera-opening aria “Padre, germani, addio,” Sara Womble’s supple, warm soprano immediately won the hearts of the audience. In her boldly convincing trouser role, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Doche’s Idamante communicated the prince’s love for Ilia as well as his loyalty to his father with fervent, commanding vocal prowess. In Elettra’s final aria “D’Oreste, d’Ajace ho in seno i tormenti,” soprano Sydney Anderson unleashed a torrent of stunning vocal fireworks that had remained hidden in her smartly defined role of the scheming, self-absorbed lover who vainly attempts to win Idamante from Ilia. As the title character, Dane Suarez cogently balanced his acute sense of royal authority with his internal conflict over carrying out the savage will of the gods, and his hearty tenor proved more than up to the task. I kept wanting more musical depth from his interpretation, but part of that problem may be attributed to Mozart. He wrote the role for an aging tenor, Anton Raaff, and he carefully avoided a level of complexity that would have compromised Raaff. Tenor Omar Najmi soared as Arbace, the king’s advisor and physician, demonstrating the emotional vibrancy that drives his splendid tenor instrument. Bass-baritone Jason Zacher thundered magnificently as the offstage voice of Neptune, and tenor Blair Remmers gave Neptune’s High Priest persuasive, golden appeal. Brendon Shapiro trained the chorus well, and these members of the Opera NEO Summer Festival filled out enthusiastically the composer’s large ensembles that so neatly conclude various scenes. Company Artistic Director Peter Kozma took responsibility for stage direction as well as conducting the 32-member orchestra. Even if the Idomeneo story lacks the dramatic complexities of his later operas, his rich, effulgent orchestral writing in this opera easily compensates, and these instrumentalists gave a consistently robust yet polished account of Mozart’s magical score. Kudos to the strings’ keen ensemble and the beautifully sculpted woodwind choruses. To call Mark Kanieff’s set design basic is to venture into exaggeration. The blue tarps on the stage floor usually represented the sea, and the black tarps covering everything else represented the royal chambers, the royal garden, and Neptune’s temple. I did like the pyramid-shaped obelisks that suggested the composer’s era, and one very moveable pyramid that became a storm-tossed ship at sea. With so little scenery upon which to focus, we were forced to focus on the singers, and Kozma plotted their movement and stage placement judiciously. In the great third act quartet “Andrò, ramingo e solo,” each singer was given ample space to vent their conflicting emotional torments while appearing united—as only Mozart can do. Although the opera’s story takes place in ancient times, Vanessa Stewart chose modern dress as a practical solution. Idomeneo’s electric blue suit—with Trumpian solid red tie—and Arbace’s khaki military suit proved perfect. Elettra’s wardrobe of flashy pastel dresses is exactly what a princess would choose to wear, and Idamante’s light grey suit for travel into exile could not have been more tasteful. Opera NEO made an excellent case for this overlooked Mozart opera, and I could see San Diego Opera staging it in grand style in Civic Theatre or presenting a more spare but clever production in the Balboa Theatre. Opera NEO presented W. A. Mozart’s “Idomeneo, Re di Creta” as part of its Summer Opera Festival and Workshop on August 10, 2018, in the Palisades Presbyterian Amphitheatre. For this review, the August 10 performance was attended, and the opera will be repeated in the same venue on August 11, 2018.
Giacomo Puccini's verismo-fueled Tosca (1900) runs on opera's highest octane – sex and violence. It speeds along, no time for detours, spinning its tale with a breakneck pace. Co-librettist Giacoso complained to the composer that there was nothing but plot, but Puccini knew exactly what he was doing when he secured the rights to Sardou's scandalous melodrama that had been written expressly for theater's great diva, Sarah Bernhardt. He knew a great story when he saw one. He urged his librettists to prune, cut, revise and get to the meat. He got what he wanted. No filler or fat, just juicy theater. Puccini even considered cutting Tosca's Act II's plea to God asking why He had allowed her to get into this compromising position, “Vissi d-arte” (I lived for love), because it stopped the flow of the story. Thankfully, he relented, and the aria became one of the most beloved, signature pieces in all opera. Light on spectacle, and with a greatly reduced orchestra and chorus, Opera in the Heights presents a highly-charged Tosca that roars down the highway on all cylinders. It's more intimate, for sure, which deepens the characters and pulls us right into the story. Thanks to Puccini, everything's so compact and elemental, the plot happens over a 24-hour period. Tosca is tightly-wound. Opera diva Tosca (soprano Elizabeth Baldwin) loves painter/political firebrand Cavaradossi (tenor Peter Scott Drackley). She is insanely jealous and assumes he's having an affair behind her back. High maintenance, she is easily manipulated by odious police chief Scarpia (baritone Kenneth Stavert), who's out to crush the underground revolutionary movement in which he suspects Cavaradossi plays a major part. The painter has indeed abetted the revolution's leader. OPERA Sex and Violence: Just Another Night at the Opera With Tosca D. L. GROOVER OCTOBER 6, 2019 8:19AM Elizabeth Baldwin as Tosca and Kenneth Stavert as Scarpia. Elizabeth Baldwin as Tosca and Kenneth Stavert as Scarpia. Photo by Pin Lim Giacomo Puccini's verismo-fueled Tosca (1900) runs on opera's highest octane – sex and violence. It speeds along, no time for detours, spinning its tale with a breakneck pace. Co-librettist Giacoso complained to the composer that there was nothing but plot, but Puccini knew exactly what he was doing when he secured the rights to Sardou's scandalous melodrama that had been written expressly for theater's great diva, Sarah Bernhardt. He knew a great story when he saw one. He urged his librettists to prune, cut, revise and get to the meat. He got what he wanted. No filler or fat, just juicy theater. Puccini even considered cutting Tosca's Act II's plea to God asking why He had allowed her to get into this compromising position, “Vissi d-arte” (I lived for love), because it stopped the flow of the story. Thankfully, he relented, and the aria became one of the most beloved, signature pieces in all opera. Light on spectacle, and with a greatly reduced orchestra and chorus, Opera in the Heights presents a highly-charged Tosca that roars down the highway on all cylinders. It's more intimate, for sure, which deepens the characters and pulls us right into the story. Thanks to Puccini, everything's so compact and elemental, the plot happens over a 24-hour period. Tosca is tightly-wound. Opera diva Tosca (soprano Elizabeth Baldwin) loves painter/political firebrand Cavaradossi (tenor Peter Scott Drackley). She is insanely jealous and assumes he's having an affair behind her back. High maintenance, she is easily manipulated by odious police chief Scarpia (baritone Kenneth Stavert), who's out to crush the underground revolutionary movement in which he suspects Cavaradossi plays a major part. The painter has indeed abetted the revolution's leader. RELATED STORIES Meet the Non-Diva Playing a Diva in Tosca at Opera in the Heights I SUPPORT Houston Press Houston Press LOCAL COMMUNITY JOURNALISM SUPPORT THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF HOUSTON AND HELP KEEP THE FUTURE OF THE HOUSTON PRESS FREE. SUPPORT US Scarpia's other motive is less political, he lusts after Tosca. As he sings in Act II, his credo is, to paraphrase, “so many women, so little time.” He arrests an unrepentant Cavaradossi, commands Tosca to appear at supper, and proceeds to torture the painter in her presence. Tell me what you know, he coolly seduces, while Cavaradossi screams from his cell. She pleads with the sadist for her lover's life. “Quanto? Quanto?" How much, she demands. “You” is his answer. Submit to me and I will let your lover go free. She's in love, what can she do? He writes out a safe passage for them, but he must pretend to kill the painter to allay suspicion. She relents. Scarpia rushes to embrace her. “Here is Tosca's kiss,” she howls, stabbing him with his own dinner knife. Dead though he may be, Scarpia's malicious influence infects the lovers. Cavaradossi's mock execution turns out to be the real thing. Swearing vengeance before God, Tosca leaps from the battlements instead of being captured by Scarpia's thugs. At the curtain, all three principals are dead. In every good melodrama, good intentions don't always prevail, fate intervenes in horrible ways, and irony raises its mocking face. Tosca has all of these, heightened into the opera pantheon by Puccini's lush chromaticism, his musical impressionism, his unerring sense of matching theatricality to music. For all the plot's cholesterol, Tosca's music seduces. Not many other operas can boast such a sparkling array of hit tunes: Cavaradossi's two stellar arias, “Recondita harmonia” (Strange harmony) and “E lucevan le stelle” (The stars were shining); Tosca's “Vissi d'arte;” the glorious processional, “Te Deum,” that chillingly contrasts against Scarpia's lust; the joyous “Vittoria!” that Cavaradossi and Tosca belt out to defy Scarpia. No wonder this is one of the world's most popular works. It's difficult to be subtle in Tosca. It's too primal, too grand, too Technicolor. It's just how we like it. Baldwin manages to portray this larger-than-life diva with surprising variety. She has a voice of steel, powerful and able to pierce through any thick orchestration, and yet capable of melting in ardor when in her lover's arms. Tosca has pride and vanity, but still has a heart of gold, naturally. And Baldwin shows us all this with her rich, deep soprano, with that perfect pitch and ability to land any high note without showing any effort at all. She's a fine actress to boot, even though it's difficult to swan about the small Lambert Hall stage. Scarpia's murder is beautifully handled (piercing red lights to punctuate her knife thrusts) – another apt touch from director Leslie Swackhamer) — and she even does a nifty suicide leap off the parapets. A trooper with shining voice.
I knew trouble lay ahead in Opera in the Heights' physical production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin (1879) when I saw the large portrait on the upstage wall. It resembles a propaganda recruiting poster from the early Stalinist era, a sort of Rosie the Communist Riveter. Against a red background, the unsmiling comrade, her hair wrapped in babushka, holds a rifle. It's quite commanding and forceful. What does this have to do with Tchaikovsky's adaptation of Pushkin's classic verse novel about dreamy romantic love butting against the reality of everyday? Well, nothing actually. That's the problem. Tatiana, the daughter of a country estate owner, lives in her world of romance novels. Innocent, she awaits her prince. When citified, bored Onegin is introduced to her, she is smitten instantly. This is her fate, she sings. Here is the man of her dreams. She writes an ardent letter to him, unburdening her heart and laying bare all her feelings for him. Unfortunately, he spurns her affections, humiliating her. He could love her as a sister, nothing more. Tatiana is crushed. At Tatiana's birthday party, Onegin brazenly flirts with best friend Lensky's fianceé, Tatiana's young sister Olga. He wants to tease Lensky for bringing him out to the burbs where the rubes live. Onegin's prank prompts Lensky's jealousy to flare into deadly fury. Rashly, he challenges Onegin to a duel. Onegin shoots him dead. Years later, Onegin, guilt-ridden but still bored with life, returns to Russia and meets Tatiana at a grand ball. No longer the young innocent dreamer, she is a grand lady, rich and sophisticated, married to an older honored soldier. Now, Onegin is smitten. He is in love for the first time in his dissolute life. He writes her an ardent letter declaring his undying love. But she, full of honor that Onegin can't fathom, rebuffs him. Though she still loves him, she will not soil her marriage vows. This, too, is her fate. And his. She banishes him from her life, leaving him utterly desolate and destroyed.
