ABDUCTED!

Edwin Davis, Brian Michael Moore, Janet Todd, Sarah Mikulski, and Matthew Hernandez

How lucky are we to hear TWO Mozart singspiels on two successive nights.! Our head is just bursting with gorgeous melodies. The youthful Mozart composed Die Entführung aus dem Serail in 1782 when the Ottoman Empire was a source of great interest to the Austrian people and the singspiel was an immediate success.

Last night,  Maestro Thomas Muraco led his Opera Repertoire Ensemble through this charming piece at Manhattan School of Music. He certainly does know his singers; he knew he had the right cast to tackle this comedy which contains two of the most challenging arias in the repertoire.

All of the singing was fine but two performances stood out for their vocal and dramatic excellence. Soprano Janet Todd portrayed Konstanze, an elite Spanish woman who was purchased by Pasha Selim from pirates and installed in his harem. He has not abused her but has been trying to win her love. Everything about Ms. Todd's performance was spot on. Her attack of the elaborate fioritura was sharp as could be but the melting lyricism of the expressive vocal line left nothing to be desired. Although the role is unidimensional, she created a warm character, loyal to her fiancé Belmonte. We held our breath throughout "Martern aller Arten", astonished at her facility.

Bass Edwin Davis impressed us with his portrayal of the comically nasty Osmin, servant to the Pasha. He so immersed himself in the role that it never seemed like acting. It would have been a mesmerizing performance if he had never sung a note; but his booming room-filling voice was marvelously employed to serve the role.  The difficult third act aria "Ha, wie will ich triumphieren" contains some of the lowest notes in the bass repertory and he nailed them.

His duet with Blonde, Konstanze's English maid who was also purchased by the Pasha, was pure delight. It's a bit unusual for both female roles to be written for the same fach; soprano Sarah Mikulski made a most effective Blonde both dramatically and vocally; we enjoyed her sparring with Osmin whom she is rejecting just as successfully as her mistress is rejecting Selim.

Not only are both female characters sopranos but both male characters are tenors. Brian Michael Moore took the role of Belmonte, Kostanze's fiancé who has come to rescue her; Matthew Hernandez performed the role of Belmonte's servant Pedrillo.  What a pleasure to hear healthy young voices sing with clarity. Mr. Moore might improve his performance by not putting so much volume in his upper register.

Pasha Selim, a non-singing role, was performed by Paul Goodwin-Groen who might have better spoken his narration without amplification. At times the microphone was too close or too far from his mouth, leading to drastic changes of volume.

Maestro Muraco and his talented musicians reduced the score for two pianos (Jeremy Chan and Jonathan Heaney) and percussion (Stefano Baldasseroni and Jia Jun Hong). The percussion comprised a bass drum, cymbals, and a triangle in order to reproduce the sounds of a Turkish marching band.

We loved the the overture with its A-B-A-B form. We loved the duet between Osmin and Blonde, which included a lot of feminine retaliation with a broom. We enjoyed  Pedrillo's serenade in Act III and the love duet between Kostanze and Belmonte in which each got to sing the melody while the other held the same note constant. We loved the quartet of reconciliation when the two pairs of lovers forgive each other. We just then realized that all of Mozart's comedies seem to have two pairs of lovers.

We must also put in a good word for the chorus who seemed very well rehearsed.

The set was minimal--just a trio of screens to suggest "the Orient".

Costumes were streetwear for the Europeans and an appropriate turban and vest for Osmin.

There will be another performance tonight. Take advantage! Although the plot is simple, the music is marvelous.

(c) meche kroop

DANGEROUS LIAISONS

Brittany Nickell, Abigail Shapiro, Timothy Murray, and Anna Dugan (photo by Carol Rosegg)

What an ambitious task was taken on by the Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater; we are happy to report that Conrad Susa's opera Dangerous Liaisons was given a terrific production by their young singers and their artistic team. It was sheer theatrical magic to convert an epistolary novel, written by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos in 1782--and to make it visually and dramatically interesting.

We have not read it but we well recall the 1988 movie which we have seen more than once. The scandalous tale of dissolute pre-Revolution France also inspired several stage adaptations, the most notable being that by Christopher Hampton, several films, and a ballet which we wish we had seen.

In 1992, the San Francisco Opera gave the commission to Conrad Susa and the opera was presented with Thomas Hampson as Valmont, Renee Fleming as Madame de Tourvel, and Frederica von Stade as Madame de Merteuil. It has been rarely produced since then but was seen in New York about seven years ago, when DiCapo Opera gave it a production that critics found static and boring. This production was anything but static and boring.

The story is a cynical one, the tale of a malicious pair of aristocrats who get their jollies from seducing and manipulating others. We are told nothing of the background of Vicomte de Valmont to explain his need to deflower virgins and seduce married women.  As far as his "friend with benefits",  Madame de Merteuil, our only clue is that she feels shortchanged in her role as a woman.  She protests that men get what they want while women take what they can get.

Soprano Anna Dugan is splendid in this role, as is her counterpart baritone Timothy Murray. They managed to hide their sinister motives behind a veneer of courtly behavior, plotting under the watchful gaze of their fellow aristocrats. The opera opens at the grand estate of Madame de Rosemonde outside Paris. Mezzo Noragh Devlin sang and acted this role to perfection. She loves her nephew Valmont but suspects he is there more to do mischief than to see her.

Valmont is preoccupied by the seduction of a pious married woman Madame de Tourvel, convincingly played by soprano Abigail Shapiro. However, he is persuaded to do Merteuil's bidding by the promise of sexual favors.

Merteuil wants revenge against a lover who discarded her by getting Valmont to deflower the man's intended bride, the 15-year-old Cécile de Volanges, fresh out of a convent, and marvelously portrayed by soprano Janet Todd.

Meanwhile, Cécile has fallen in love with her harp instructor, the Chevalier de Danceny, convincingly played by Kiwi tenor Oliver Sewell. Her mother Madame de Volanges (the fine soprano Brittany Nickell) must break up this romance because Danceny is a commoner and the intended husband is a well to do aristocrat. She is worried about the wrong fox in this hen house!

Merteuil pretends to be Cécile's friend and confidant but betrays her and takes Danceny as her lover. Valmont rapes Cécile under the guise of instructing her in the art of love, and simulates friendship for Danceny.

Madame de Tourvel struggles against her urges but, religious woman that she is, sees the possibility of redeeming Valmont and he plays along until she weakens. He then cruelly dumps her under the tutelage of Merteuil who writes his lines for him. "It is not my fault", he keeps repeating, sounding every bit like our antique MacIntosh Blueberry when it crashed.

We have given enough spoilers but you can imagine how unfortunate the ending will be for all concerned.

Dona D. Vaughn's direction could not have been any better. It is too bad that DiCapo's production was perceived as static. This production was anything but. Erhard Rom's set comprised decorated vertical panels that slid from side to side, creating a lavish drawing room, various bedrooms, a woodland walk, and a convent. Several scenes took place side by side.  For example, Merteuil might be writing a letter at her desk on one side with Valmont reading it aloud in his own room on the other side.

Costume designer Tracy Dorman outdid herself as one can see in the above photo. Each design revealed something about the character and the color palette matched the season of the year in which the act took place. The overall effect, complimented by Dave Bova's wig and makeup design, achieved verisimilitude.

Since this is an opera, we must discuss the music. Frankly, Susa's music did nothing for us; but one must take our opinion with the following grain of salt. We rarely enjoy late 20th c. music. Susa's music is mostly tonal but there was no beauty in it; there was power and discordancy but it all sounded the same.

The libretto by Philip Littell (who never wrote an opera libretto before) comprised dialogue in rhymed couplets (good) but came across as doggerel (bad). The recitativi supporting the dialogue were jagged and unmusical. There were plenty coloratura vocalises but they seemed to be randomly inserted without characterological justification.

Perhaps the English language does not inspire beautiful phrases of music.  As a matter of fact, we conferred with our opera-loving companion during intermission regarding who might have created a better opera from this story. It should have been in French, inasmuch as the story is so quintessentially Gallic.  Gounod?  Massenet?

The problem with the vocal line was that the tessitura was uncomfortably high.  The singers handled it beautifully but it is not the most attractive range to listen to for two hours. It might appeal to those who enjoyed Thomas Ades' Tempest, which we did not.

Interestingly, the English diction was far better than expected, credit going to a lot of hard work on the part of the singers and Diction Coach Kathryn LaBouff who made sure every vicious word counted. Happily, there were surtitles in case one missed something.

Valmont and Merteuil each had a sort of aria, or rather a monologue, in which they explained something about themselves.  But the best parts musically were the trios and duets in which the various voices balanced beautifully.

George Manahan led the orchestra through a reduction of Susa's score created by composer-arranger Randol Bass. We can only imagine how this dense and difficult music must have sounded before it was reduced.

The final scene made use of a wonderful chorus, under the direction of Miriam Charney. Brittany Bellacosa portrayed Emilie, Michael Gracco played Monsieur Bertrand, and servants were played by Amy Yarham, Christian Thurston, and Ashley Alden. Father Anselm was Robert Orbach.

This same superb cast will perform the Sunday matinée and a different cast will perform Friday evening.  Having heard some of the Friday night cast at the opera preview, let us reassure you that their vocal and dramatic skills are just as fine.

(c) meche kroop