CENTURY OPERA COMPETITION

 

Manli Deng, Yohji Daquio, Hyunju Ha, Allison Deady, Madison Marie McIntosh, Elizveta Ulakhovich, Jingjing Qi, Caroline Corrales, Rose Kearin, and Samuel White

It's always an exciting event when the finals of a competition are open. We were delighted to have been invited to The Century Opera Voice Competition to hear ten fine young singers. The singers each led off with an aria of their own choosing; then the judges requested another aria from their lists of prepared arias, presumably to learn something new about the singer, perhaps facility in a different style or different language. We enjoyed this rounding out of the picture. 

We do not envy the judges since each young singer offered something valuable. And so, we will not tell you, dear Reader, who won the prizes because they were, in our eyes (and ears) all winners! We will tell about the young artists in the order in which they appeared. 

First on the program was soprano Rose Kearin who did justice to "Ach, ich liebte" from Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, sung in good crisp German.  We regretted missing Adelaide's Aria from Jonathan Dove's The Enchanted Pig, since we had never heard it before and might never have another opportunity.

Also superb in German was mezzo-soprano Allison Deady who gave a passionate delivery of Octavian's post-coital aria "Wie du warst!" from Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier. Equally fine in Italian, she sang "All'afflitto è dolce il pianto" from Donizetti's Roberto Devereux, meeting the fioritura challenge with grace.

We hadn't heard enough of soprano Caroline Corrales at the Santa Fe Opera when she sang Donna Elvira (in a nun's habit) so we were especially delighted to get a better "listen". Her sizable sound was perfect for Verdi and "Ernani, Ernani involami" was thrilling. Ms. Corrales is an emotional singer and Jenufa's prayer from the Janáček opera of the same name was stirring. We cannot comment on the language because we are completely ignorant of Czech.

"Stridono lassù" from Leoncavallo's  Pagliacci is one of our favorite verismo arias and soprano Manli Deng created a lovely sound world including a delicate trilll. Massenet's Le Cid, however, is not well known by us, but Ms. Deng evinced some fine sounding French in "Pleurez, mes yeux". Her use of dynamics were effective in eliciting emotion.

"Chi il bel sogno di Doretta" from Puccini's La Rondine was a much better choice for soprano Jingjing Qi than "Sleeping Beauty" from Menotti's The Hero. It is difficult enough for native English speakers to sing musically in English! However, there was a heart-stopping decrescendo that tickled the ear.

Soprano Hyunju Ha invested "Ah, non credea mirarti" from Bellini's La Sonnambula with dynamic variety, fine fioritura, and an affecting vibrato. In the exposed passage without piano accompaniment we could appreciate the musicality of her phrasing. Although her second selection was not listed on the program, the choice of Sophie's "Rose Aria" from Der Rosenkavalier came as a delightful surprise, sung with wide-eyed innocence in fine German. They were good choices because they demonstrated her versatility.

Tenor Samuel White was the lone male on the program and he showed his stuff in the "Flower Aria" from Bizet's Carmen and an intense delivery of "Una parola sola..Or son sei mesi",  Ramerrez' aria from Act II of Puccini's Fanciulla del West. Mr. White has a powerful voice and we longed to hear some tenderness in places.

We would like to hear soprano Elizveta Ulakhovich on another occasion. There is a lot o beauty of tone there but her choices did not seem suitable to us. Micaela's "Je dis que rien ne m'épouvant" from Bizet's Carmen requires a singer who can sound like an innocent country girl pushed to the limits of her fearfulness, a sense of "whistling in the dark". It wasn't there. Ms. Ulakhovich projects an air of confident glamor and we could think of far better material for her to sing.

Mezzo-soprano Madison Marie McIntosh, on the other hand, knows exactly where her strengths lay and how to play to them. She has a voice of unusual and exciting timbre with great flexibility in fioritura. "O mio Fernando" from Donizetti's La favorita is the perfect vehicle to show off her finely honed bel canto technique. The judges requested "Un'altra volta ancor" from Händel's Partenope which was just as splendidly performed; however, we would have much preferred to hear Waltraute's aria "Höre mir Sinn was ich dir sage" from Wagner's Götterdammerung. We hope we will have another opportunity.

Finally, soprano Yohji Daquio did get the opportunity to show off her versatility by performing two very different characters, the sprightly Marie from Donizetti's La fille du regiment showing her patriotism in "Salut a la France" with all its fabulous fioritura--and then meeting head on "I am the Wife of Mao Tse-Tung" from Adams' Nixon in China. This aria involves a lot of rage and repetition and it takes a gifted singer to make it interesting. She succeeded. We were floored.

© meche kroop

WRONG REVOLUTION

Madalyn Luna and Samuel White (photo by Carol Rosegg for Manhattan School of Music)

Sometimes operas can be successfully updated or even changed to a different locale. And sometimes the changes strike us a just plain wrong-headed. In 1839, when Emmeline (possibly Emeline in real life) was sent as a 13 year old child to work in a factory in Lowell, Massachusetts, society was different. Her story tells us something about the effect on families created by the Industrial Revolution. It also tells us something about the social mores of the day.

It is 180 years later and we are in the middle of an Information Revolution with very different effects on society, its mores, and the economy. We have child labor laws. We have birth control. We have Planned Parenthood. We have means by which unwed mothers and adoptive children can find one another. A man who never learned to read is almost unheard of.

This is what was going through our mind during Manhattan School of Music's production of Tobias Picker's 1996 opera Emmeline which we saw last night. The performances were stellar, particularly that of the totally committed Madalyn Luna who created the role of the tragic heroine. According to Judith Rossner's book from which J.D. McClatchy's libretto was derived, the poor child was torn from her impoverished family and put to work in the mills to support her family with its numerous children.

Hungry for love, she fell for the blandishments of the boss' son-in-law and got pregnant. Her child was taken from her sight unseen and adopted into a family. Dismissed from the mill she returned to her family where she took care of others for a couple of decades. Unwilling to marry for wealth, she fell for a young man from the Midwest who married her. Her past came back to haunt her in a particularly tragic and mythic fashion.

In order to make this 19th c. story "relevant", Director Thaddeus Strassberger has forced it into a Procrustean bed. Toward the end he has religious bigots carrying posters and signs about "Sin" and "Pro-Life". Yes, we still have pockets of belief like that in the United States but it was wrong-headed to try to force this story to comment upon that. Yes, we still have men in power abusing young women but that's a different opera.

In spite of our disappointment in the production, we enjoyed this "play with music". The music was quite pleasant, particularly in the instrumental interludes, but the vocal lines did not hold our interest. The only melodies we heard were when the excellent chorus sang "Rock of Ages" and also when we heard riffs of a folk song which we couldn't quite identify.

Tenor Samuel White has a good sized instrument which he used well in the role of Matthew Gurney. His acting was persuasive as well. He had a believable connection with Ms. Luna who was more believable as a 13 year old than as a woman in her mid-30's.

Baritone Laureano Quant, whom we just enjoyed as Zurga in Les pêcheurs de perles, was also believable as Mr. Maguire, the "vile seducer".  His singing was just as fine as it was as Zurga but more difficult to appreciate in English, especially with the wandering vocal lines in the score.

Elisabeth Harris turned in a fine performance as the cold-hearted Aunt Hannah, and Gabriella Chea was winning as the warm-hearted landlady/housemother Mrs. Bass.

Kelly Singer filled the role of Sophia, a friend of Emmeline, and did it well. Yi Yang portrayed Emmeline's weak father. Emilyn Badgeley was scarily convincing as Emmeline's spiteful younger sister. Robert Ellsworth Feng was the fire and brimstone preacher.

This same excellent cast will be performing on Saturday; an equally fine cast (several members of which we can vouch for) will be performing on Friday and Sunday.

Paul Tate dePoo III's Scenic Design was believable and quite inventive for the factory scene.

The chorus, directed by Jackson McKinnon was in fine condition and the young musicians of the orchestra did their usual excellent work under the baton of George Manahan, giving Mr. Picker's score a fine reading.

(c) meche kroop