Victorian Opera's well-intended but undistinguished Remembrance

In Victorian Opera's Remembrance concert, of the many text frames and black and white photographic slide projections utilised to reflect on adventure, courage, mate-ship and tragedy, one of the final projected slides inform of the approximately 300,000 men and women who left our fledgling nation to embark on the long journey to a war fought on many fronts. The tremendous death toll of around 60,000 and injured numbering 120,000 in the Great War of 1914-18 is an anguishing statistic.

Victorian Opera developing artists,
Orchestra Victoria and Community Chorus

In this salute to one of the defining yet dark transitions in Australian history during this centennial year of the Gallipoli landing, Victorian Opera deserves much praise for its wide-reaching collaborative efforts, its community involvement and outreach to the people of Victoria. For its one-only performance in Melbourne, Hamer Hall's colossal scale, however, sadly overwhelmed the concert and far too many seats were empty.

Writer, director and two-time Miles Franklin Literary Award winner Rodney Hall's threads of interesting wartime personal records and a war correspondent's reports sew a six-part chronological progression from Enlistment, Embarkation, Training, Gallipoli, Trenches (The Western Front) and Homecoming. The format was realised musically with a potpourri of popular songs of the day arranged by Victorian Opera Artistic Director Richard Mills amongst his own descriptive orchestral composition, music distinctly seesawing between turbulence and reflection which balanced the jaunty tunes.

David Hobson as the war correspondent

But Hall's intended free-flowing adaptation with a continuum of movement (as the program notes described) looked flimsy. The notional behaviours of dancing, waving, rifle training and wounded soldiers, for example, did more to unscrew the tribute's impact and the work's many parts struggled to reach memorable dramatic heights.

As the war correspondent, the dexterity of David Hobson's trusting, suave and sunny tenor was not tested to its poignant and expressive limits. It was in the narration of trench stories where the more searing aspects rested.

In various roles that included soldiers and nurses, eight of Victorian Opera's outstanding young artists (supported through its collaboration with University of Melbourne's Conservation of Music), met the vocal writing with ease but projection and sound balancing persisted. Nathan Lay, Matthew Tng, Carlos E. Bárcenas and Michael Petruccelli impressed in their solos while the females, Kate Amos, Elizabeth Lewis, Emma Muir-Smith and Cristina Russo, worked best in ensemble but it wasn't a night given to presenting the best capabilities of these developing young artists.

A well-rehearsed community choir of more than 100 members added heightened atmospheric appeal in key moments but lacked vital swagger in the old tunes of yesteryear.  Orchestra Victoria provided solidly driven and comforting support and the percussion and brass sections led with flair.

Remembrance will be performed in Bendigo, Wodonga, Warragul and Shepparton and certainly the smaller venues will lend greater impact to Mills and Hall's collaboration. Unlike the point in history Remembrance pays tribute to, it will unlikely, however, be recorded as a defining moment in the company's young identity-building 10-year history.


Production photos by Charlie Kinross

Women in War: A sensitive and optimistic new work at Arts Centre Melbourne

In this centennial year of remembrance of the ANZAC spirit, an especially sensitive new work from a much to praise cross-cultural international collaboration reflects on the suffering of women in war. What it does further is demonstrate Australia's potential to tap its own multi-cultural heart to produce theatre that reflects our broader connections to the world.

From composer Tassos Ioannides and librettist Deborah Parsons, Women in War traces the lives of three women from three different cultures - Clarice (Caitlin Spears) a young Australian volunteer nurse, Yeliz (Berna Anil), a Turkish widow searching for her only son on the battlefield and Polyxeni (Irini Tzanetoulakou), a Greek war widow who runs a simple cafe. Their lives are spun into a tragic story of love, loss, bravery, adaptation and reconciliation.

The cast of Women in War 

Set during the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915 on the Gallipoli Peninsula and the Greek island of Lemnos their individual paths converge to reach a climax in which a collective vow is made, while instructing the audience, to never fight again. In a chorus of strength the message resonates, throwing back at us the human conundrum of praying for peace while fighting wars to achieve it.

In its 21 scenes without interval, director Alkinos Tsilimidos compacts the storytelling with sure-footedness and strong delivery. Ioannides' music combines some beautifully sympathetic pieces inspired by each cultural identity, plunging to operatic depths and swept by pulses of musical theatre. Woven with crackling radio broadcasts, sounds of battle, the oft-referenced World War I song, "After the War is Over" and accompanied by Parsons' libretto, which breathes with poetry and realism, an enveloping sense of place is created.

An all-female team of designers build this sense of place via a little Greek cafe and a clear, starry sky providing an inviting start. Set designer Shaun Gurton maintains broad spatial depth incorporating a few unfussy, unmatched cafe tables and chairs to the left and a second-level raised platform to the rear giving ample scope for Tsilimidos' direction. Ioanna Tsami's costumes seamlessly evoke the period and Katerina Maragoudaki's sudden and subtle shifts of lighting heighten the drama.

Tomas Dalton and Caitlin Spears

Women in War, however, suffers from a pastiche of intermittent, interruptive and highly gestured cinematic music verging on the epic, which at times feels discordantly spliced onto its events. Extraneous scenes divert focus from its central characters at times and a sense of congestion dominates despite the ease with which the stories are told.

What stands out in Women in War are the fervently and evenly balanced voices of a cast who sharpen their characters with life and women who etch their grief in your memory. Women driven by love are portrayed with ease from three well-cast female leads. In them, with all their differences, they conjure an inner strength seemingly unknown to themselves without feeling contrived.

As Clarice, Caitlin Spears's bell-bright voice captures both her innocence and common sense with radiant belief, arriving on Lemnos to do her bit for king and country and more than just a bit to see her fiancée Ernest who is serving with the ANZACs on the island.

Berna Anil's passionate expressivity and powerful voice shows the hope and desperation that Yeliz has in the search for her son as she cuts her hair, takes a uniform and enters the battlefield.

Irini Tzanetoulakou's Polyxeni is grounded with salt-of-the-earth directness and a haunting voice which lives in the dark, hiding her loss away as much as she can while running a cafe making pennies from the business of war and supporting her adolescent daughter.

Tomas Dalton depicts the compassionate Ernest as a gentleman of war with a marvellously polished performance and an attractive voice of honeycomb-like texturing and warmth of tone. Together with Spears, the young pair show striking form as a duo.

Jason Wasley gives everything he has to the animalistic Orderly but draws the short straw with a character that attempts to add tension and issue without success. The remaining cast give strong form to help propel the drama and together in chorus they impress with dynamic harmonic blending.

Women in War crept into the Arts Centre Melbourne calendar with little fanfare and might very well disappear into obscurity after the ANZAC centennial year is over. Nonetheless, it leaves a grand sense of optimism for broader cultural forays in Australian contemporary opera.

Blessed in bel canto heaven at Victorian Opera's I Puritani

With an evening blessed in bel canto heaven, Melbourne audiences had just one chance to hear Victorian Opera's concert performance of Vincenzo Bellini's I Puritani, a grand opera which premiered in Paris in 1835 not long before the young composer's death.

Expectedly, the Hamer Hall stage was devoid of sets and costumes but the emotive vision and robust musical landscape painted by the shining artists and the musicians of Orchestra Victoria was clearly palpable. I Puritani's original 1640s setting during the English Civll War was felt with as much presence as its story clearly has in a modern context, a story of loyalty and love crossing political allegiances and its ensuing conflict.

Jessica Pratt (centre) with soloists, chorus and musicians of Orchestra Victoria

With neither surtitled introduction nor announcements (local audiences seemed to be trusted having mobile phones switched off), a matter-of-fact briskness heralded a subdued entry into what would become a momentous escalation of musical and dramatic force.

Conducting, Victorian Opera Artistic Director Richard Mills came to the stage and commanded every corner of the orchestra with gusto. The tempi were thoughtful and timing was crisp. Intermittent, erratic brass excepting, Orchestra Victoria responded marvellously, especially with the fine, vibrating warmth of the string playing. Highly percussive passages were safely handled, giving the well-prepared, confident-voiced Victorian Opera Chorus room to breath. Rear-stage but cleverly not highly prominent, the chorus acted as an effusive force on the horizon.

Early in Act I a tentativeness existed in orchestra and chorus blending but ended thrillingly on the summit of excellence with Elvira's aria then quartet with chorus, "Oh, vieni al tempio, fedele Arturo". After interval, in Act II a refined cohesiveness remained. Act III pulsated with tension, energy and splendiferous vocal signatures.

Showing a natural-like rapport with his soloists, each taking the stage as their roles required to lend clarity to the story's flow, Mills unobtrusively conducted with both the direction of a guardian and the trust of a friend.

Bellini demanded of his librettist Carlo Peponi, "The opera must draw tears, terrify people, make them die through singing". The Italian sung libretto was as easy to make sense of in its surtitled English translation as it was interpreted by the singers. Pleasingly, rolled 'r's were gloriously enunciated. Bellini's vision felt very much realised and breathtakingly interpreted.

I was impressed the first time I saw Australian soprano Jessica Pratt perform in Naples in 2013. Pratt has quietly established herself firmly in sought-after European houses and having the opportunity to hear her again in Melbourne (her only Australian performance this year) is a coup for audiences after her debut in the role of Violetta in Victorian Opera's La Traviata last year.

In a lipstick pink gown, amongst a line-up of black-tie suited soloists, Pratt exuded an immediate, captivating  purity as Elvira, betrothed to Sir Riccardo Forth but eventually given permission to marry her love, the royalist Lord Arturo Albert. Calm and radiant, Pratt's experience and comfort in the role was apparent, securing her character with dramatic completeness. As radiant in voice as her stage beauty, Pratt not only navigated her rich vocal range and fluid, elegant coloratura without apparent effort for all the energy required, but showed an understanding as to where her voice belonged in ensemble.

Pratt returned in Act II in an emerald green cloak draped over a midnight-blue gown to reflect the darker, delusional Elvira who loses her mind after Arturo disappears mysteriously with a female captive prisoner. Driving the poignancy of her character without resorting to melodrama, Pratt responded in brilliant form in  "Qui la voce" then "Vien, diletto" with heartfelt pathos.

Celso Andres Albelo Hernandez as Arturo and Jessica Pratt as Elvira

Looking delighted to perform in front of a Melbourne audience Columbian Celso Andres Albelo Hernandez powered with passion and determination as Lord Arturo Talbot. Exhibiting a thrusting, dynamic Italianate tenor, Albelo drove his voice with courageous control like a racing car driver taking risks that paid off. Albelo's middle range was thick and lusciously layered and his phrasing was intelligent. An inclination to overextend finishes brought a little imbalance but in ensemble there was complete awareness of the power of his instrument. In Act III's "Corre a valle, corre a monte, l'esiliato pellegrin" in which Arturo continues a song he hears that he used to sing with Elivira, every note was awoken with meaning. A reunion with Elvira followed in a thrilling duet with Pratt in "Vieni fra questa braccia". Together, the singing was vibrant, unforced and the on-stage harmony was real.

As Elvira's uncle Sir Giorgio Valton, bass-baritone Paul Whelan's experience in the role showed, portraying a compassionate and trusted mediating force with exemplary diction and a fireside-warmth of tone. Only in ensemble did a hint of eagerness occasionally sneak into vocal starts.

Currently a developing artist at Victorian Opera, as Elvira's betrothed Sir Riccardo Forth, Nathan Lay stepped into a demanding role to notch up another level of success with a memorable performance. Layered with don't-mess-with-me grit, Lay's seamless phrasing and suave, velvety baritone showed ease and control. Only in the voice's upper range did signs of strain appear but Lay remained steadfast in the spirit of character. Often accompanied with Whelan's Giorgio, the pair never appeared upstaged by the star amorous couple. One of the evening's overall highlights came with their extended Act II duet, a vocal rendition blending age-old comfort and surety.

In smaller roles, the night was enriched with accomplished vocal performances from baritone Jeremy Kleeman as a resonant, warm-voiced Lord Gualtiero Valton, tenor Carlos E Bárcenas adding impressive high head notes as a clear, confident-voiced Sir Bruno Robertson and Tania Ferris' lusciously leaden-dark mezzo-soprano for Enrichetta di Francia, the mysterious prisoner and widow of the King Charles I.

When the performance was over and adulations were done, it occurred to me that Victorian Opera had conveyed the power of Bellini's last opera without the trimmings of costumes and sets. Rather than feel cheated, I felt marvellously privileged. It also occurred to me, without mobile phone or audience disturbance, what a behaved and satisfied lot the Melbourne audience was.


Performance photographs by Charlie Kinross 

An immersive, real-time I Capuleti e i Montecchi at Zurich Opera

                            Olga Kulchynska as Giulietta and cast

If there are problems with Vincenzo Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi (The Capulets and the Montagues) they weren't apparent in the capable hands of Zurich Opera and director Christof Loy's dramatisation. One of the many interpretations of the story of Romeo and Juliet, not even Bellini's casting of Romeo as a mezzo-soprano gets in the way, with Joyce Di Donato's boundless strength and conviction making sure of that. And if it felt far removed from a Shakespearean construct, it owes a little to Felice Romani, Bellini's librettist who based the work on an Italian source (Luigi Scevola's 1818 play Giulietta e Romeo) rather than Shakespeare's, and much in Loy's compelling retelling of an archetypal story.

Many times removed from its origins and set centuries later, Loy honours Bellini and the art form of opera while presenting a legible, incalculable tragic drama of mini-series proportions, located somewhere in the second half of 20th century Verona.

Loy sets a fast pace to match the often quick tempo conductor Fabio Luisi establishes in the pit, the rotating stage motor powering hard as scene after scene is revealed with not so much cinematic flow but real time immediacy. During the almost 5-minute overture alone, the story's outcome is revealed as a five-part rotate turns through eight scenes which include the aftermath of conflict with bodies strewn across the stage and the empty gaze of a young girl caught up in a tragedy. Since the story is already widely known it doesn't destroy the progression but, on the contrary, it established the concept and raised curiosity marvellously.

Olga Kulchynska and Joyce DiDonato

Stripped away from its original Medieval setting, Christian Schmidt's designs gave spatial variation across the Capuleti compound, its bland plaster and timber-panelled austerity framing a conservative, proud and powerful family. Stiffly elegant costumes in black tie for the men, long gowns for the women suited an imminent wedding. And yes, if a female could be cast for Romeo, why not have men cast as women as Loy did for some of the male chorus in an Act I scene. It wasn't even apparent at first but it was convincingly scene-appropriate. Franck Evin's often diffused or gloomy lighting assisted and the overall visual impression lent a remarkable sense of presence as if each window or opening was a direct link to a real world.

This world expressed the cold discomfort of the two warring families, the Capuleti and the Montecchi, as if linked to an organised crime syndicate, no guesses there. The concept, too, transferred very comfortably with the libretto but the greatest power came via an excellent cast.

The conviction Joyce DiDonato brings to Bellini's Romeo is immense. DiDonato portrayed a desperate single-mindedness in Romeo's shrewd pleas for brokering a peace deal with the Capuleti which would see him marry Giulietta. After failing, the same desperation is directed towards Giulietta in attempts to convince her to elope with him which DiDonato embodies with the valour of a saviour. Naturally, it was the voice of one of the great mezzos of today that was being scrutinised and DiDonato made it very clear her range, stamina and expressivity are in excellent shape, from fierce voluminous grit to notes filed down to infinitesimal beauty.

Olga Kulchynska and Joyce DiDonato

Soprano Olga Kulchynska beguiled, capturing the troubled Giulietta with a powerful demeanour as vacant as the spaces themselves. Kulchynska's vocal artistry painted everything from angelic purity to explosive power while being able to maintain unfaltering length and clarity with ease through the rise and fall of her voice. Together, DiDonato and Kulchynska acted with complete fluency, sharing a subliminal vocal beauty and creating an exciting vision of wrenching drama in which the focus was on the tension and urgency, not on melodramatic romantic gestures. It came across cleverly, poignantly and with the immediacy of being in the moment, making great sense of the limited close body contact between the pair and focusing on the circumstantial tragedy.

Benjamin Bernheim stood mighty as Tebaldo in action and voice, his large, clear, ringing tenor a force of its own but equally powerful over the chorus and orchestra. As Giulietta's father Capellio, Alexei Botnarciuc brought a distinguished presence and a disquieting pensiveness in a fine solid vocal display of not knowing how he might react. Sympathetic to Romeo and Giulietta's relationship and retainer of the Capuleti, bass-baritone Roberto Lorenzi imbued Lorenzo with an ice-cool wariness, his gravel-rich and resonant voice on the mark. Threading his way across the day's horror, Gieorgij Puchalski created intrigue as he seemingly alternated between Romeo and Giulietta as an 'attendant' or as a ghostly shadow.

The Zurich Opera Chorus are to be credited with not only their impressive vocal depth, pinpoint timing and wonderful balance, but the magnitude of the detail in which they act.

And driving the momentum with great feeling, Fabio Luisi led the Philharmonia Zurich to fill the theatre with Bellini's highly charged music with energetic playing. Amongst some stunning frenetic string playing and flowing brass, solo members of the orchestra get to shine with Act II's brooding solo clarinet of Robert Pickup a fine example.

With every ingredient weighed up thoughtfully, this production sucks you in from the beginning and quite remarkably makes you forget this is a story harking back centuries. There is much in it to ponder without losing the story's effect and you'll want to see it again.


Production Photographs by Monika Rittershaus

A radiant pom-pom filled L'elisir d'amore at the Zurich Opera

In Zurich Opera's current revival of director Grischa Asagaroff's production of L'elisir d'amore, stars of the opera firmament aligned for a feast of superlative singing in an unashamedly period-proud and polished production with heaps of cheesiness melted in for good measure. It's only five years since the production first premiered in 2010 and it's unlikely dust will settle long on this opera buffa's crisp storytelling for a while.

Damrau, Breslik, Gallo, Cavalletti and Kristoffersen

It starts with a painted proscenium screen incorporating concept drawings, sheet music and composer Donizetti's portrait, suggesting that this is Donizetti's own conceived work for the stage, a work which has remained comfortably in the repertoire since it's first performance in 1832 at the Teatro della Canobbiana in Milan. From there, the sketches are realised with a timeless charm which continue right through to performance end.

Revival director Ulrich Senn's direction breathes exuberance into a bucolic 19th century Basque village with a radiant cast of peasants, soldiers and an exotically quirky quack called Dulcamara. Detail-rich down to the eye-brows and full of crafty comedic action, including a boar which scuttles across the stage, Senn never lets the raw stage distract from the make-believe. Aided by Jürgen Hoffmann's sun-drenched lighting and Tullio Pericoli's splendidly immersive sets and costumes grafted with the warm colours of a summer harvest for the peasants, cool blues for the bumbling contingent of soldiers and pom-poms dotted everywhere getting chuckles of their own, the entire tableaux, with Jürg Hämmerli's delightfully corny choreography, buzzes with life and laughs, backgrounding voices of striking expressivity.

Pavol Breslik and Diana Damrau

Bel canto star soprano Diana Damrau and tenor Pavol Breslik combined in a magical chemistry of seesawing games of love and attraction. From the moment she sits with the villagers to read aloud the story that comes to life of Tristan and Isolde, Damrau, as a devilishly capricious Adina, was ready to relish every moment. Dazzling with vocal depth and a whipping, often silky coloratura, Damrau created a unique and powerful unpredictability wrapped in comfortable confidence to give an all-exciting performance. In every posture imaginable, Damrau delivered, and on just one short innocuous command, the entire range of vocal possibility seemed on display - Damrau's Act II fleeting "M'ascolta, m'ascolta"/"Listen to me" was astounding.

In the battle for Adina's love, Breslik immediately endeared as Nemorino. The eyes could say it all but the body equally moved with uninhibited expression, making the gullible, illiterate and unconfident peasant young man as easy to read as a book. Hoping to find the solution to his woes through the story's telling of a potion with the power to attract, Breslik's Nemorino took Adina's book lovingly, amusingly unable to differentiate its right from wrong side up. With deep reserves to draw from, Breslik's voice was rich, muscular and superbly energised with a smooth legato and rolling coloratura, entwining humour and pathos with remarkable force. In Nemorino's final aria "Una furtiva lagrima"/"A furtive tear", Breslik lifted every note with scorching pathos to summon complete control.

Most auspiciously, Nemorino procured the 'potion' he needs for Adina to fall in love with him from Dulcamara, realised with flair by Lucio Gallo's smokey, resonant and clearly enunciated baritone that drives salesmanship to excellence. Nothing more than cheap wine, Dulcamara's 'potion' gave Nemorino alcoholic confidence as he acts out a cheeky mimicking display of genital adjustment and marching drills characteristic of his rival in love, Belcore.

Massimo Cavalletti and Diana Damrau

As Belcore, pom-pom decorated down to a cottontail, Massimo Cavalletti led his clumsy men with a voice emanating from the earth's core. Charred with charismatic weight and capable of squeezing out extraordinary delicate top notes, Cavalletti's self-confidence and physical bulk none the less lost out to the boyish innocence and persistence of the smaller-framed Breslik. It was in his coloratura that his vulnerability was exposed.

Hamida Kristoffersen added luscious texture and enthralling high notes as Adina's convincing friend Giannetta and Jan Pezzali mimed with unspeakable cuteness (sporting more pom-pom adornment) as he plied amongst the villagers as Dulcamara's companion with his mate, the precision playing, dutiful trumpeter, Urs Dengler.

The Zurich Opera Chorus rose ebulliently after plodding behind the pit and, excepting the many widely spaced tempi overextending the overture, conductor Giacomo Sagripanti gave a life-giving fibrillating heartbeat to Donizetti's score. The Philharmonia Zurich accompanied with a full, balanced and refined sound with stellar musicianship.

Blessed with great acoustic intimacy (and elegant surrounds to admire) the Zurich Opera House theatre treated its audience with a completely seamless night of craft, entertainment, uplifting joy and a surprisingly good amount of pom-poms.


Production photographs by Judith Schlosser

Il ritorno d'Ulisse slowly rises at Boston Early Music Festival

 Colin Blazer as Ulisse

In Newton's third law of motion, for every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. In proverbial speak, "too many cooks spoil the broth" but oppositely, "Many hands make light work". So, for every wisdom might there be found an equally opposite wisdom? The audience of a Monteverdi opera will discover so - and within them, moral compasses which constantly shift according to what is known at hand, what one is faced with and what duties are expected of oneself.

In Boston Early Music Festival's new production of Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria - part of a trilogy of Monteverdi operas presented with L'incoronazione di Poppea and L'Orfeo created by the same artistic team - the story of Ulisse's long journey home from the Trojan Wars, aided by the gods, his son Telemaco and a friend Eumete to his unerringly faithful queen, Penelope, was told with sumptuous, Monteverdian period theatrical devices and, as it progressed, engaging results.

The Prologue got underway with a prolonged affair of the gods spruiking their opposing wisdoms in the clouds, but the music failed to ignite interest in their words. Then, as Act I commenced with Penelope's subsequent dolorous, wailing and lengthy opening aria, the act dragged further into snores - Penelope might have had suitors of kings longing for her love and competing for her empire but she didn't win friends easily despite mezzo-soprano Mary-Ellen Nesi's dark vocal suitability.

Minor issues with timing and projection from a few members of the cast weren't assisting. Thankfully, it was the goddess of Wisdom, Minerva, divinely assisted by Mireille Asselin's melodious, golden-edged soprano and buttery low range, who brought relief just before the curtain went down on Act I and a much needed interval.

Mary-Ellen Nesi as Penelope and Laura Pudwell as Ericlea

It seemed that the tasty Monteverdian recipe director and set designer Gilbert Blin brought to the table with L'incoronazione di Poppea seemed to fall flat. I wanted to blame Monteverdi and his team for the night's misfortune but Blin's concept appeared to be having its own 'opposite' reaction. In such sermonising combat that humour found a great home in, Blin's Poppea responded befitting a Venetian Carnivale's entertainments. But Ulisse, premiering a few years earlier than Poppea in the 1639-40 Venice Carnivale season, was struggling to find the same footing.

On the contrary, the same colonnaded trompe l'œil-like set received enhanced scene changes which included the quaint rolling wave action each time Nettuno surfaced. Anna Watkins' soft-hued, elegant Roman costumes and Lenore Doxsee's skilful lighting were even more eye-catching than that achieved in Poppea.

Act II to Act V - with an interval after Act III - passed pleasingly with a momentum that bobbed and rose to unexpected poignancy. In Act III, the festivities planned by the suitors to lift Penelope's spirits struck emotional nerve with sensuous staging to the chorus of "Dame in amor belle e gentil", speaking to Penelope of pleasures to enjoy which cannot be achieved in decrepit old age. Monteverdi's rich musical progression and Giacomo Badoaro's libretto aided the flow but despite more cohesive warmth and power in the singing, the balance between the lighthearted and serious continued to sit with a degree of discomfort.

Zachary Wilder as Telemaco

Tripling with remarkable effect as the god of Human Frailty, as the Greek King of Ithaca, Ulisse, and disguised as an old beggar, Colin Balzer anchored the performance with a well-hewn presence of hulking strength combined with a broad resonant tenor holding tireless sturdiness and dexterity. In a pairing with Mary-Ellen Nesi's stubborn, skeptical, yet calmly postured Penelope, an aching sense of time apart and their unbreakable bond of constant love was felt with real impact. In her ecstatic moment of recognising Ulisse, accompanied by a striking shift between high head and low chest voice, it was gratifying to see Nesi's Penelope finally blessed with a smile and to share their joyful reunion as they sang of the arrival of pleasures and delights to come in "Del piacer, del goder venuto è 'l di".

Tenor Zachary Wilder as Ulisse's son Telemaco brought youthful bravery to his character, matching it with accomplished vocal technique and a thrilling vibrato. Even more impressively, Wilder's lively dynamic tone captured an underlying sense of adventure and sincerity in his character. In duet with Balzer, filial love was most palpably felt in Act III's "Mortal tutto confida e tutto spera".

Danielle Reutter-Harrah as Melanto and Aaron Sheehan as Eurimaco shared a wonderfully relaxed chemistry in finely crafted duet and other notably satisfying performances came from Patrick Kilbride as Iro, a hanger-on of the suitors, Matthew Brook as Nettuno and Christian Immler as Anfinomo, a suitor to Penelope. That many of the cast are alternating in several roles and performing in all three operas in the trilogy is to be praised.

When the beauty and variety of Monteverdi's music escaped during open orchestral passages, the gorgeous playing from the BEMF Chamber Ensemble under musical directors Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs came to the fore. Concertmaster Robert Mealy's refined violin work especially stood out with brightness.

For me, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria has some structural problems which mar the dramatic rise in the first part of the opera but salvation does come eventually, though I would've liked to see Blin's better, more enlightened hand which was bestowed upon Poppea.


Production photos by Kathy Wittman

Poppea's old recipe perfectly baked at Boston Early Music Festival

David Hansen as Nerone and Amanda Forsythe as Poppea

It's impossible not to be moved by the strongly bonded text and vocal line inherent in Monteverdi's final opera, L'incoronazione di Poppea. On opening night, in Boston Early Music Festival's current production, it was conveyed with such vocal and dramatic nuance, and crowned with accomplished singing that heaves and sighs, grunts, tickles and blasts with the music, that proof of Monteverdi's magnificence - the master craftsman of the work amongst others - lives on.

In a production first performed at the 2009 festival and revived here as part of a trilogy of Monteverdi operas with Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and L'Orfeo, director and set designer Gilbert Blin has stitched drama and style together with an interpretation that plonks the staging in the midst of its Monteverdian days.

Poppea premiered during the Venice Carnivale season in 1643 so it seems appropriate a theatrical party was prepared. There's a cornucopia of overripe philosophising, libidinous release and entertaining antics within the work which Blin has milked marvellously like no other Poppea I'm aware of.

David Hansen as Nerone

Lofty ideas are masked in parody and vice-versa in philosophical, political and moralistic battles between all classes of society and the gods themselves. The goddesses Fortuna and Virtù argue who has more power but Amore, the god of Love, intervenes to declare that he has the greatest power both in heaven and on earth.

As the white-clothed gods stepped down from their pedestals and wove through the story 'invisibly', as a metaphor for man's conscience, earthly events involving Poppea and Nerone's adulterous affair and her eventual coronation as Roman empress unfolded.

The opening night cast of soloists demonstrated mastery of intent in every corner of singing excellence. As a frisky, pesky-tempered and seemingly mentally unstable Nerone, countertenor David Hansen set a blazing standard with lyrical charm and volcanic strength in a vocal display of emotive breadth, range and musical wizardry, exerting power and ruthlessness far greater in voice than amusingly shown by his Nerone's at times feminine side, while gesticulating dismissively with no concern for his senate or the people.

Soprano Amanda Forsythe was radiant, peachy and scheming as Poppea. Not missing her turn in sexual dominance over Nerone, and dreaming of marriage to Nerone without preoccupations of becoming empress, Forsythe's pure tone and mellifluously flowing line would even suggest a harmony between her undeterred love and Love as the greater power.

Shannon Mercer as Ottavia

As Nerone's wife Ottavia, Shannon Mercer captured her irreconcilable and revengeful character with bounding power and vocal richness. Nathan Medley shined in the role of Ottone with a warm, angelic countertenor that wasn't quite to Poppea's taste as he tried to secure her love, but it perfectly dazzled Drusilla, coyly and brightly sung by Teresa Wakim.

As the philosopher Seneca, Christian Immler stood tall amongst both mortals and gods with a commanding and flexing, crusty baritone. Serving their masters Ottavia and Poppea, Jose Lemos as Nutrice and Laura Pudwell as Arnalta dished out hearty, characterful vocals and counterbalanced the upper class with their own uninvited counsel and comical craft.

The cast was filled out with fine performances from gods and goddesses doubling as mortals with Erica Schuller as La Fortuna and Damigella, Danielle Reutter-Harrah as La Virtù and Pallade and Nell Snaidas as Amore and Valletto.

Looking every bit the Roman soldier as Littore, Marco Bussi and his men, Zachary Wilder as Lucano and Aaron Sheehan as Liberto sang with fervour and practised vocal comradeship in the service of Nerone while freely expressing disagreement with his rule. John Taylor Ward spun Mercurio with notable surety.

D. Hansen, A. Forsythe & Nell Snaidas

During the performance I wondered whether the whimsical, melodramatic acting would tire and falter but over the three acts the results stood up as stiff as the painted scenic drops which framed the stage - testament to Blin's grasp in direction and a dedicated cast. Only a little love was lost on Nerone and Poppea's sometimes more mechanical than melting pairing.

Scenically, a colonnaded neo-classical Roman hall in fast diminishing perspective and painted trompe l'œil effect gave the performers a vibrancy as if they had dropped off the entablature above. Anna Watkins' richly brocaded and draped costumes of Roman skirts, tunics and gowns in sage, gold and mulberry revealed powder-soft beauty under Lenore Doxsee's glowing lighting.

And huddled together like friends around a campfire, musical directors Paul O'Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Robert Mealy as concertmaster and the BEMF Chamber Ensemble supplied lasting warmth and glow in a musical pact of strength, courtesy of the luxurious sound of period instruments.

Conceptually, this Poppea might have passed looking outdated, irrelevant and dry. In fact, it had the taste of an old favourite recipe freshly baked to perfection.


Production photos by Frank Siteman