FALSTAFF--BEST EVER

Molly Burke, Emily Skilling, Gerardo de la Torre, Nina Mutalifu, Maestro Richard Cordova, José Luis Maldonado, Maria Brea, Te Yu Huang, and John Kim

"It is with no small degree of embarrassment that we confess to not appreciating the charms of Verdi's final opera--not until tonight, that is.  Under the stewardship of Artistic Director Martina Arroyo, the program Prelude to Performance once again provided a matchless evening of entertainment, fun, and artistic merit to a delighted audience as well as performance opportunities to young singers at the cusp of major careers.  Now how does she do all this????

By doing what the Metropolitan Opera, with all its vast resources, cannot.  She hires the best talent in the business to coach and direct the young performers in a concentrated program; the ensemble feeling is evident from one moment to the next. "

The above is a quote from our review of Prelude to Performance's Falstaff ... from 2012, when we had just begun Voce di Meche.  Our opinion of last night's performance is no less enthusiastic. As a matter of fact, one aspect was even better! In the intervening six years we have come to appreciate the opera more and more, having enjoyed productions at Juilliard and at Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble. 

What distinguished last night's performance was the conducting of Maestro Richard Cordova. We were so impressed by his insightful and detailed reading of the score that we went backstage to speak with him. We learned that he studied the score long ago with Maestro Carlo Maria Giulini and it has remained one of his favorite scores. We heard features of the orchestration that we had never heard before, for example, the way the sound of the oboe and the English horn (Slava Znatchenii) knitted and purled around the quartet of female voices in the "laughing" ensemble. Verdi's late life masterpiece revealed similar features in generous measure from one moment to the next.

We have heard moments in Puccini's operas in which the orchestration imitated or underscored the onstage action, but this is the first time we heard it in Falstaff.  Our ears were opened to new insights! The superb musicians were provided by orchestra contractor Marc Szammer.

We began by mentioning our own learning experience but do not mean to shortchange the singers who were uniformly excellent. Falstaff can't work without a larger-than-life artist to portray the titular character and José Luis Maldonado more than filled the bill (and the costume). We think the last time we reviewed him we called him a beast onstage. Great artists need more than a great voice; they need a stage presence that pulls the audience right in and this he did. He was, in turn, arrogant, deceitful, pompous, entrapped, humiliated, and abashed.

The four women who plotted his humiliation were each superb, but together they were outstanding. Nina Mutalifu's Alice Ford was well paired with Molly Burke's Meg Page. As Mistress Quickly, Emily Skilling got to perform one of our favorite scenes, approaching the Fat Knight with ersatz politesse-- "Reverenza!"  This has been running through our head all night long.

In the role of Nanetta, Maria Brea made a fine showing. Her Fenton, Te Yu Huang, stepped into the role at the last minute and truly rose to the occasion.  If it were difficult for Ms. Brea to accommodate to a new Fenton, she did not show it. The pair provided "romantic relief".

And for comic relief we had John Kim as Bardolfo and Christopher Nazarian as Pistola, who created wonderfully funny characters without sacrificing fine singing.

Gerardo de la Torre made a fine Ford and delivered his aria with fine voice and style, earning a big hand. Kyuyoung Lee created a different kind of character, the ridiculous figure of Dr. Caius to whom Ford plans to marry off his daughter.

Ian Campbell's direction was first rate and happily kept the action in the time period and place in which it belongs. We really liked the way he handled the final scene in a somewhat understated manner; it is usually overdone. 

Charles R. Caine designed the opulent and period accurate costumes which we believe we remember from the production of 2012. Steven Horak's wigs and makeup were well suited to the cast.

Sets were simple and augmented by projections on the rear wall, for which no one was credited in the program, but Dante Olivia Smith's lighting worked well.

The excellent chorus was conducted by Assistant Conductor Noby Ishida.

In sum, we can't remember having a better time at this opera than we did last night. We don't need "concept". All we need is a coherent production with great voices and orchestral clarity. We left Kaye Playhouse sort of dancing down 68th St.

(c) meche kroop

TRAGEDY TONIGHT! COMEDY TONIGHT!

Cast of Suor Angelica

Although Giacomo Puccini wrote a trilogy, Prelude to Performance wisely decided to present only two parts, focusing their attention on the two one-acters that employed a large cast and which provided a fine balance between the tragic and the comic. We are pleased to report a stunning success in that we were moved to tears and then to laughter. This only happens when a committed cast dedicates themselves totally to the work and the original intention of the composer and librettist are honored with fidelity.

The tragedy of Suor Angelica is both personal and cultural. The cultural tragedy is related to the sexually repressive period in late 17th c. Italy. Poor Suor Angelica has borne a child out of wedlock, probably due to innocence and ignorance; she has been hustled off to a convent and hasn't seen anyone from her family in seven long years.

The personal tragedy is that she finally receives a visit from her aunt La Zia Principessa who comes on a mission of getting Angelica to sign over her inheritance in favor of her sister who is about to be married, after a presumably chaste courtship. The aunt treats her niece with scorn and derision. What news of the male child?  He died of an illness a couple years earlier but no one had seen fit to share this news with the mother. "Everything was done to save him", claims the aunt. Somehow we did not believe her.

Angelica, an expert in herbology, takes poison then realizes she will be damned and prays to the Virgin for forgiveness. She experiences a vision or hallucination of the child she lost and dies believing in her salvation.

This is very much a story of its time since women can now choose to have a child without the questionable benefit of matrimony! Thankfully, the story was not updated and we did not spy a single sister bearing a cell phone.

What we did spy was a superlative cast working in concert and creating a supportive society filled with individual characters, each unique in spite of the uniform habits.

Soprano Michelle Johnson's performance of the lead role left nothing to be desired. During her scene with the rejecting aunt, she lost her convent cool and exhibited profound flashes of the anger and despair that had been suppressed and finally erupted.  Her "Senza mamma" was as moving as any we have heard. This is a sizable instrument used judiciously!

Similarly, mezzo-soprano Leah Marie de Gruyl created a hateful character that was just as totally believable as the one created by Ms. Johnson.  So effective was she that we couldn't keep from imagining what kind of upbringing she endured that made her place family reputation above familial love. Ms. de Gruyl has an impressive instrument that should take her far in the world of opera; she employed it in the service of characterization, coloring her voice with icy coldness.

The remaining nuns were also excellent. We were quite moved by soprano Nicole Rowe's Suor Genovieffa, a former shepherdess, who admitted to missing the pleasure of holding a baby lamb in her arms.

We also liked the two nuns who were responsible for provisioning the convent--Jenna Buck and Renee Richardson.  Melanie Ashkar sang well as La Maestra delle Novizia. There was not a mediocre voice onstage. Everyone sustained the beautiful legato line of the Italian. Molly Burke portrayed La Suora Zelatrice, Crystal Glen was Suor Osmina, Yulan Piao was Una Novice, Amy Guarino sang Suor Dolcina, Wan Zhao was La Suora Infermiera, and two Converse were portrayed by Hillary Hei Lee Law and Maria Zollo.

Ian Campbell's direction was superb with plenty of onstage business to keep the nuns busy. Joshua Rose provided the simple set with projections of a cloister for the first part and a sky filled with stars for the final part.  His lighting was equally effective. Charles R. Caine designed the costumes.

Under the baton of Willie Anthony Waters, Puccini's gorgeous lyricism shone brightly and limned the various characters and situations.

Review of Gianni Schicchi to follow!

(c) meche kroop

HOW SWEET IT IS!

Lynnesha Crump, Sharon Sweet, Woo Young Yoon, Molly Burke, Spencer Hamlin, and Zaikuan Song

We almost always enjoy master classes. It is exciting to learn things we might not pick up on our own. We can feel personally satisfied with a singer's performance of an aria but when the master teacher makes some changes we hear the aria again and recognize what we may have missed the first time.

We are planning to attend as many Prelude to Performance master classes as possible this month to prepare ourself for the upcoming season at Hunter College--7/6-7/9. We love getting to know the singers better, to hear what they are capable of, and in what way they can improve their performance.

Legendary soprano Martina Arroyo knows how to select the very best master teachers. It was truly a coup to enlist another legendary soprano Sharon Sweet to teach these five impressive artists who are now headed for major careers--at least, that is our opinion! Some master teachers make nice and fall all over themselves complimenting the students and just tentatively offering some little change "to see if it works" for them.

Not so Ms. Sweet! With high spirits and great humor, she "calls 'em as she sees 'em". She is direct but never offensive. The best support one can give, after all is said and done, is honest feedback. All five of last night's students profited greatly from the work they did with Ms. Sweet. There was no "boilerplate" that was given to all.  Each singer got something special and unique.

Woo Young Yoon sang first with "La fleur que tu m'avais jetee" from Bizet's Carmen. His sweet ping-y lyric tenor grabbed us from the first note and held us captive 'til the end. But in the process of his highly individual instruction, he and we both learned something new that took the performance to a new level.

We had never heard the phrases "onset" and "offset" but they deal with the initiation of a phrase without "scooping" and the ending of a phrase without trailing off.  Also, there are places in the line where the singer must not take a large inhalation but rather permit a subtle release of the abdominal muscles. When one does take a full inhalation, think about the entire phrase. Ms. Sweet does not speak of "legato" but rather of singing a phrase horizontally, not vertically. We understood exactly what she meant.  Great advice!

Soprano Lynnesha Crump blew us away with "Senza mamma" from Puccini's Suor Angelica, one of the operas to be performed in July. Ms. Sweet asked her to create a backstory for Angelica and to portray the vulnerability of a woman who has just been shocked and grief stricken to learn that her illegitimate son has died, and also disappointed that the visit from La Principessa had a cold, rejecting, and strictly practical object. 

Ms. Crump was urged to get down on the floor and to feel her inner thoughts. We were blown away with twice the force! And there was a technical issue that we would hear again later--using the tongue to articulate, not the jaw.

Just imagine two fine tenors in the same class. Spencer Hamlin, who will be singing Renuccio in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi during the July season, gave us a foretaste with "Avete torto...Firenze e come un albero fiorito". Mr. Hamlin possesses a fine squillo but sounded even better after his work with Ms. Sweet.

He was advised to take his time in the recit whilst scolding his squabbling family. There was a lot of emphasis on rhythm. Dotted 1/8 notes are not to be sung like triplets. Grace notes must be brought out. He was also urged to sing the aria with his hands in his pockets, acting solely with his face and his voice. We heard about the jaw again as well. And we heard some general tips about never clearing the throat or drinking water, both of which are abrasive to the vocal cords..

Zaikuan Song performed Leporello's "Catalogue Aria" from Mozart's Don Giovanni and was admonished to pay more attention to the rhythmic markings, i.e. singing the "ma" off the beat. It is necessary to count the beats carefully in Mozart! Also we heard a suggestion about double consonants which are best sung connected to the subsequent vowel. Mr. Song came prepared with his "catalog" in hand which the audience loved. Ms. Sweet urged him to act less with his body and more with his voice, for example in the repeating phrase "La piccina, la piccina, la piccina". Mr. Song (how well named he is!) has a wonderfully full bass and we are looking forward to hearing his Zuniga in Bizet's Carmen during the July season.

Last on the program was mezzo-soprano Molly Burke who performed "Acerba Volutta" from Francesco Cilea's verismo opera Adriana Lecouvreur. Her voice struck us as a force of nature with a future in Wagner. (Let us hope!) Her performance launched a valuable discussion of using the head voice, and of not being afraid of the passaggi. She was given vocal exercises to deal with the descent from pure head voice and taught how to move the same amount of air faster. The other great tip was to create space for the highest note in a phrase during the inhalation. The singer needs to start with the palate elevated.

There was one exercise that seemed helpful for all the singers--the lip trill. Singers can practice doing a phrase with the lip trill before adding the words.  They can learn thereby when and where they run out of breath.

Accompanist for the evening was Dan K. Kurland who was ready, willing, and very very able.

(c) meche kroop