SECRET LOVEJennifer Moore

Jennifer Moore and Everett Suttle (photo by Tina Buckman)

Love is a carelessly handled state in 21st c. America; people jump in and out of relationships like rabbits. But in 18th c. France, love was a serious issue and many rules of etiquette had to be observed. It was not unusual for folks to pine away for a love object and many chansons were written about unfulfilled longing and desire.

This situation was delicately handled by the prodigious composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, in his 1780 opera L'amant Anonyme which was given a charming production by The Little Opera Theatre of NY, affectionately known as LOTNY--a company which has introduced us to several other rarities.

The composer was born in Guadeloupe to a slave woman named Nanon and fathered by a French plantation owner who brought his family to France when Joseph was but 7 years old, ensuring that his son received a fine education.  Young Joseph exhibited early aptitude for music, dancing, and fencing; his charm, talents, and good looks won him a place in society although at certain times his being a mulatto brought ugly prejudice into his life. From what we gleaned from our reading, his life story would have made a splendid opera in and of itself.

This brief opera, his only surviving one, was premiered at a private theater for the entertainment of aristocrats and it is likely that the composer himself bore within a secret love for a Caucasian woman. Perhaps he was working through his predicament by means of his art.

LOTNY Founder and Artistic Director Philip Shneidman wisely combined episodes from the composer's life to pad out the slender story which, for today's audience, needed a bit of conflict. Dialogue was recited in English with the gorgeous arias, duets, and ensembles sung in mostly excellent French.

Valcour (tenor Everett Suttle) is in love with Léontine (soprano Jennifer Moore) but is afraid to tell her since she seems to have sworn off love. Valcour gets encouragement from his friend Ophémon (baritone Jesse Malgieri) and Léontine gets the same from her Lady in Waiting Dorothée (mezzo-soprano Aude Cardona). There is another couple whose betrothal serves as inspiration to the reluctant couple-- Jeannette (soprano Marie Masters) who is engaged to Colin (tenor Anthony Webb).

We have previously heard and enjoyed in various venues the excellent singers in this cast but, rest assured, we are also well acquainted with the singers of the other cast whom you can count on to deliver performances just as fine as this cast. We might add, since we are not color blind, that casting African-Americans as the composer/Valcour was completely appropriate, lending verisimilitude to the story.

Mozart may have dominated the music scene in Austria but we are less well acquainted with French musicians of the Classical Period in France. It was a fine thing to become acquainted with the lovely music of the Chevalier de Saint-Georges; there is a delicacy to the music that tickles the ear and the melodies are eminently singable.

The eight musicians of New Vintage Baroque included Elliot Figg who conducted from the harpsichord. Instruments were authentic to the period. We are not sure we could tell the difference in the case of the violins, viola, and cello; but there was no mistaking the pair of baroque oboes and the impressive baroque bassoon. The sound was enthralling.

We can only hope that some of these arias and duets will find their way onto the concert stage. Perhaps the singers will take note of this suggestion and perform them at recital. The harmonies of the duets were particularly lovely and songs about reluctance in love and about romantic longing are often heard at recital.

We feel grateful to LOTNY for bringing this previously unheard composer to our attention. One never knows what one is missing until one hears it!

(c) meche kroop

STUCK ON GLUCK

The plucky chamber opera company known as The Little Opera Theatre of NY has unearthed a little-known comic opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck; L'ivrogne corrigé, a short one-act piece premiered in Vienna in 1760, just two years before his well-known Orfeo ed Euridice.  The stock situation of a young couple whose romantic plans are obstructed by a guardian is familiar to us from literature and opera libretti.

The venue chosen, 59E59 Theater worked surprisingly well.  The sightlines are superb and Scenic Designer Neil Patel did a most effective job in dividing the small stage on the diagonal placing the musicians (comprising a string quartet with oboe and harpsichord) to one side and the operatic stage to the other. Nothing more was needed than a couple chairs, some hanging lights, and a wardrobe that doubled as a bed and a platform.  Costume Design by Lara de Bruijn was lovely and appropriate to the period.  Director Philip Shneidman kept the action lucid.

Herr Gluck wrote some gorgeous music here, some of it presaging his later works.  Conductor Richard Owen at the harpsichord brought out many subtleties in the score; it was oboist Slava Znatchenii who captured our ears most often, as well as first violinist Francisco Salazar.  The duet between the eponymous "hero" Mathurin, sung by tenor Anthony Wright Webb and his drinking buddy Lucas, sung by a very funny baritone Ron Loyd, involved some beautiful vocal blending.  A subsequent duet between Mathurine the tippler's wife, sung by mezzo Teresa Buchholz, and her niece Colette, sung by soprano Jessica Sandidge delighted the ear with its harmonies in major thirds--very appropriate for two women discussing the price women pay for marriage.

The plot centers around the two women plotting along with Cléon, Colette's love interest, sung by tenor Jonathan Winell, in an effort to forestall Mathurin's plan to marry Colette off to Lucas.  The three of them get the two unconscious drunkards onto the bed together (providing the audience with no small degree of laughter) then wake them and convince them they are dead; they then don masks and present themselves as Pluto and two furies who first condemn the men to the underworld but finally relent and allow them a reprieve if they beat each other.  Mathurin must promise to drink no more and to allow his niece to marry Cléon.

The singing was fine throughout, as was the acting.  Mr. Loyd was consistently hilarious.  Mr. Winell was a bit stolid as Cléon but made much more out of his playing the part of Pluto.  Diction was variable and therein lay the sole problem with this delightful evening.  The original libretto by Louis Anseaume and Jean-Baptiste Lourdet de Santerre was written in French in rhyming couplets.  Here we got a ham-handed translation by Ivana Mestrovic which did not scan and did not rhyme.  Musical accents and verbal accents seemed at war with one another.  The irony is that the plot is so straightforward that no one would have protested a performance in French, even without titles.  This was an (un)artistic decision which we failed to understand.

Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable evening and we count on the feisty Little Opera Theater of New York will bring us more undiscovered gems in the future.

(c) meche kroop