CRYPTO-OPERAPHILES COME OUT OF THE CLOSET IN COOPERSTOWN - BASEBALL USED TO CAMOUFLAGE HIDDEN PASSIONS AT GLIMMERGLASS OPERA FESTIVAL

Lyubov Petrova and Patrick Carfizzi in The Marriage of Figaro. Photo: Karli Cadel/Glimmerglass Opera.

We all know that mythical opera lover who is too embarrassed to admit to his beer-swilling, t-shirt-wearing, couch-potato friends that he would rather be watching Tosca butcher Scarpia than the New York Yankees slaughter the Blue Jays. Social pressure used to prevent him from indulging his passion until 1975 when the Glimmerglass Opera Festival was launched. Now he can go to Cooperstown on the pretence of seeing the Baseball Hall of Fame, visiting a thousand stores selling baseball memorabilia and even watching the boring game. In reality he is off to see four operas in the Alice Busch Theatre on the shores of Otsego Lake.

In its choice of operas and quality of productions, Glimmerglass can hold its own against the best and that, for your friends, includes the Yankees and whoever won the World Series last year. This year’s choices are two repertoire staples and two adventurous productions. The warhorses are Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Puccini’s Tosca. The others are Handel’s Tolomeo in its first professional production in North America and Aaron Copland’s rarely produced The Tender Land. Here are the scores in the order that I saw them.

THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO

From the rush of anticipation created by the opening chords of the overture to the final scene of forgiveness, reconciliation and conjugal love, Mozart’s masterpiece is opera at its finest. The Glimmerglass production directed by Canadian Leon Major is a sheer delight and provides some outstanding singing. There are a few “errors” by the coach but the team displays consistently good hitting and the result is a joy in the opera park.

American bass-baritone Patrick Carfizzi is a Sarkozy-sized Figaro, physically and vocally agile, who does a superb job in the lead role. Russian soprano Lyubov Petrova is a topnotch Susanna. Her voice has a lovely coloration and she is so attractive one can understand why the Count cannot keep his hands off her. Definite home runs here.

American soprano Caitlin Lynch has a fine, regal bearing and a beautiful voice and she made a superb Countess Almaviva. The Countess sings two of the most beautiful arias in the repertoire, “Porgi, amor” and “Dove sono,” where she laments the loss of her husband’s love and wonders what happened to the moments of sweetness and pleasure that have vanished leaving only memories. Lynch sings beautifully and movingly and sends the ball out of the park.

American bass-baritone Mark Schnaible sang a credible Count Almaviva and Haeran Hong made a significant impression in the small role of Barbarina. The South Korean soprano is a member of Glimmerglass’s Young American Artists Program and she clearly deserves more exposure. Nice triples for both.

The hormone-driven Cherubino was sung by French mezzo-soprano Aurhelia Varak. She is of small stature and has the required agility for the role and almost makes it to home base.

Donald Eastman’s set was simple to the point of austerity. The Count is not as wealthy as we may suppose him to be. The opera is set sometime in the 19th century. The women wear long dresses but the men have suits. No fancy wigs or lace. The set gets a mere double most likely because of financial restrictions.

Canadian Director Leo Major coaches the team and there are issues with some of his choices. He prefers many arias to be sung from a sitting position. It is fine for the plaintive “Dove sono” to be sung while sitting down by why is the angry Dr. Bartolo (young artist Adam Fry) seated for “La Vendetta.” Surely singers can move and sing and gesture at the same time. The coach gets an error.

TOSCA

Puccini’s fourth opera is a pot-boiler by any standard but the contents of the pot are darn good. Ned Canty directs a dark and menacing production that hits some home runs and a few triples.

The home run belongs to Lester Lynch’s Scarpia. The pot-bellied American baritone looks fiendish and menacing. Scarpia is a rapist who prefers force to persuasion in sex and with his sonorous voice, Lynch gives a thrilling portrayal.

Tenor Adam Diegel has a powerful voice (it’s a small theatre with good acoustics so everyone sounds at his best) and his Cavaradossi came off quite well. His voice tends to have better force than tonal quality in the upper register and he only managed a triple. Soprano Lise Lindstrom was a dramatic and powerful Tosca. Unfortunately during the first act she looked undersexed, underdressed and underfed – like a school marm, you might say – and not the flamboyant diva after whom Scarpia lusts. She is given a beautiful white gown in Act II and is far more attractive.

The set, lighting and costumes were all in dark gray and black tones. A bit overdone, I thought. We need to see what is going on and too much darkness for effect can end up being annoying.

David Angus conducted the Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra and Chorus and the latter rose to a thrilling pitch at the end of Act I.

TOLOMEO

With George Frideric Handel’s Tolomeo, the crypto-operaphile has moved to an entirely different level of hidden passion. This opera premiered in 1728 and this is the first time it is being professionally staged in North America. It is high baroque, delectable and silly, a rarity to be sure, and our friend can only see it wrapped in a plain paper bag. His friends may forgive The Marriage of Figaro thinking it is an Italian sitcom but Tolomeo? Never.

If caught, the only possible defense is to say that he is studying Hellenistic history. He is following the labyrinthine history of the Macedonian dynasty that ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great and he is focusing on Ptolemy IX.

In Tolomeo, King Ptolemy IX is thrown out of Egypt by his mother Cleopatra and brother Alexander. He ends up in Cyprus where Elisa, the sister of King Araspe falls in love with him. Ptolemy’s wife Seleuce also arrives disguised as a shepherdess and Araspe falls in love with her. Then Ptolemy’s brother Alexander also arrives and he …. Forget the plot.

The opera consists of a number of short recitatives and arias. The characters tend to walk on stage, sing their piece and saunter off. There are few duets. Most of the arias are quite delightful but the parts do not make a satisfactory whole.

Director Chas Rader-Shieber could not take the plot seriously and decided to mildly ridicule it. There are some cheap laughs like bringing fans on stage and blowing flower petals to illustrate the libretto. There are three doltish footmen who stroll on and off the stage. Staging is spotty at best and the costumes are from any time period that you want.

The opera and the production, aside from the comic touches added by Rader-Shieber depends on the arias and the singing and there is gold here. Soprano Joelle Harvey hits the ball out of the park with her gorgeous singing but countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo as Tolomeo and Canadian mezzo-soprano Julie Boulianne get homers quite handily. Young Artists mezzo-soprano Karin Mushigain (Alessandro) and baritone Steven LaBrie (Araspe) more than hold their own.

You are not likely to see Tolomeo in the repertoire of too many opera companies but it would be interesting to see someone take the plot seriously and provide some more staging and less tomfoolery. In the meantime, a seventh-inning bow to Glimmerglass for bold programming.

THE TENDER LAND

The final offering is The Tender Land, an opera that premiered in 1954 but is very rarely performed. It has music by Aaron Copland with a libretto by Horace Everett.

The opera is performed by Glimmerglass’s Young American Artists and the Festival deserves a grand slam for the training program. Thirty lucky and talented American artists are selected to work with professionals and perform. Several of them participated in the other productions but the cast of The Tender Land was made up entirely of young artists.

The Tender Land is a coming of age story about Laurie (Lindsay Russell), a high school graduate, who falls in love with Martin, (Andrew Stenson). Her family objects strenuously but Laurie decides to leave them and follow her love. Shades of West Side Story and Picnic come to mind.

The opera is composed through and that means some pretty ordinary conversations are sung rather than spoken. The music would be appropriate as background to dialogue in a film but listening to conversation recitative-style left me lukewarm.

There is a love duet in the second act between Laurie and Martin. The music swells but it never soars. The lyrics rarely rise above the prosaic and the whole thing left me lukewarm, at best.

That is truly unfortunate because Russell and Stenson gave marvelous performances as did Stephanie Foley Davis as Ma Moss, Mark Diamond as Top and Joseph Barron as Grandpa Moss. They deserve a better work to showcase their talents


For the closet opera lover, then, Glimmerglass is the ideal place to enjoy your secret pleasure. There is even a bonus in store for you. You will find a beautiful expanse of grass along the shore of the lake and that is where you play golf – you hit a small round ball with various tools to get it in a slightly larger round hole. For that reason, I gather, a six-hour session is known as a “round” of golf. Tell your friends that you played a “round” without dying of boredom. But do not commit the faux pas of telling them that the large body of water beside the course is the aquatic hazard for the 19th hole. It is Otsego Lake.

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The Glimmerglass Festival continues until August 24, 2010 at the Alice Busch Opera Theater, Cooperstown, New York. Tickets and information (607) 547-0700 or www.glimmerglass.org

ALCESTE IN WELL-SUNG BUT CONTROVERSIAL PRODUCTION AT AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL

by James Karas
jameskaras@rogers.com

Aix-en-Provence is a beautifully preserved medieval city about thirty kilometers north-east of Marseilles. Its medieval structures, narrow streets and rich sightseeing opportunities are sufficient to please almost any discriminating traveler. But for some of us, all of that pales in comparison with what the Aix-en-Provence Festival has to offer. Between July 1 and 21 you can see five operas in the Festival’s four theatres and enjoy a large number of concerts and other events throughout the summer. And, if you must, you can still shop and eat.

The operas are: Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Stravinsky’s The Nightingale, Rameau’s Pygmalion, a new chamber opera by Oscar Strasnoy called Un retour and Gluck’s Alceste.

The story of Alcestis is one of those myths that once heard is never forgotten. Admetus, the King of Thessaly is told that he will die. Apollo owes him a favour and grants him the opportunity of staying alive if he can find a replacement for the journey to the Underworld. No one in Thessaly jumps at the opportunity of dying for the king except his wife Alcestis. (I am using the English version of the names for convenience.)

Alcestis’s act has fascinated scores of writers since antiquity. There were a number of tragedies based on the myth in Ancient Greece but only Euripides’ Alcestis has survived. The reasons for and consequences of her decisions were picked up by composers and librettists soon after the advent of opera in the 17th century and dozens of operas have been written about her.

Is it an act of sacrifice? Is it a statement of ultimate love, devotion and fidelity to her husband? What is it? She says that she is willing to die because she cannot live without him. What about her duties as a mother and queen? Can such an act, be it sacrifice, devotion, love, duty, be justified? And what about husband Admetus? He does eventually say he cannot live without her but he never comes out looking very good. This is a myth about a woman.

Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) composed Alceste based on a libretto by Italian poet Ranieri Calzabigi and it opened in Vienna in 1767. The “Vienna Version,” as it came to be known, was in Italian. Francois-Louis Gand Le Blanc du Roullet translated and revised Calzabigi’s text and produced a French version. Gluck re-worked the music and the “Paris Version” of the opera opened in 1776.

The Festival produced the Paris version in the Théâtre de l'Archevêché, the outdoor theatre located in a building that used to be the local archbishop’s residence. It does not get dark until very late in July and the opera did not start until after 10:00 p.m. and it finished well after one in the morning.

European festivals seem to have made it their specialty to produce controversial productions and the Aix’s Alceste, directed by Christof Loy, is no exception.

The most important aspects of the production are fortunately not controversial at all as is the singing done by soprano Veronique Gens in the title role and the English Voices as the chorus. The brunt of the work falls on them but tenor Joseph Kaiser as Admetus, baritone Andrew Schroeder as the Grand Priest of Apollo and baritone Thomas Oliemans as Heracles do superb work.

Gens’s Alcestis is a middle-class mother and wife. She wears flat shoes and simple dresses and is faced with a terrible decision. She makes the decision but has second thoughts, even doubts about it, but she never goes back on it. She believes it is the right decision. Loy may want us to think that she is acting in defiance of the unjust gods but there is no evidence of that in her acting or singing. She sings her signature aria “Divinités du Styx” in anguish and not in anger or defiance. A superb vocal and acting performance.

Kaiser’s Admetus could be an office worker, suit and tie on, who learns two devastating pieces of news: that he is about to die and that he is saved by his wife agreeing to take his place. He simply cannot handle the situation and goes all over the emotional board from elation to confusion to despair. Kaiser does an excellent job in portraying the hapless king as envisioned by Loy.

Heracles is a friend of the family who arrives with his suitcase and travelling bags carrying presents and his magic fur stole. A bit of a playboy but strong enough to beat the gods and save Alcestis from going down under. Again well done as seen by Loy.

The production is done in front of a white wall that features two large doors and a window. The doors will open to reveal Alcestis’s bedroom and when the time comes, the underworld. They are all dressed in modern costumes but the people of Thessaly (the chorus) wear variously pants to the knees, suspenders, sailors’ or maids’ uniforms and carry dolls. They appear and act less than adult.

Admetus and Alcestis are a nice middle class couple with a couple of kids and an unprepossessing bedroom. Apollo, like Heracles, is more a clown than a god. This is a long way from any conception of Greek mythology that most of us have. This is the middle class fighting the unjust gods. So much for Apollo returning a favour to Admetus.

Loy shows the flexibility of Greek myth and baroque opera. They can be placed almost anywhere and tickle the imagination as the composer and the librettist delight the mind and ear. Some controversial productions are more successful than others and this one is not the most successful.

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Alceste by Christoph Willibald Gluck opened on July 2 and ran until July 13, 2010 at the Théâtre de l'Archevêché, Aix-en-Provence, France. http://festival-aix.com/

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE AT LA SCALA - OPERA AT THE SUMMIT

by James Karas
jameskaras@rogers.com

The Triple Crown of Opera has been placed on the heads of New York, London and Milan – two Anglophone and one Italian city. In awarding the coronets, one suspects that the French, the Germans and the Austrians were not consulted. What with Bizet, Wagner and Mozart batting on their side, you would have thought they would have more than a passing chance for one of the crowns.

The industrial city of Milan got the nod over heavyweight contenders like Florence where opera was “invented” and Venice where it blossomed. Paris, Rome, Vienna et. al. can eat their hearts out as mere commoners beneath opera’s crowned cities.

Needless to say, Milan’s La Scala fully deserves its place as a premier opera house and a visit earlier this summer to see The Barber of Seville proved the expected. Rossini’s comic masterpiece has been a La Scala staple since 1820 and all opera lovers have enjoyed its marvelous tunes and broad comedy from “Largo al factotum” (“Figaro, Figaro” to Bugs Bunny fans) to “Una voce poco fa” where the wily ward Rosina announces that she will have her way and that’s that.

The current production at La Scala was directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle in 1969 and has been remounted numerous times since with different casts. La Scala did attempt a different production in 1999 with Figaro coming down in an air balloon but it must have been a bust and the Ponnelle production was brought back.

The Barber of Seville needs a first class baritone for Figaro, a mezzo-soprano for Rosina and a tenor for the Count. La Scala has two all-star casts on hand. I saw the one with American tenor Lawrence Brownlee as Count Almaviva, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato as Rosina and Franco Vassallo in the title role. It is a well-paced, superbly sung production that brings out all the comic aspects of the plot.

Vassallo is a youthful, energetic Figaro who is as good as his word when he says he can do anything. That includes singing with vigour and virtuosity. Brownlee has a marvelous tenor voice that can climb vocal heights with ease. He may not be physically suited to the role – a bit short and slightly roly-poly – but you forget all that the minute he opens his mouth.

The star and show stealer is DiDonato as the simple ward of the old Dr. Bartolo (a funny and sonorous Bruno de Simone) who not only announces but swears that she will be victorious in her quest to marry the Count. Bartolo, you see, is planning to marry her. With the help of Figaro, she and the Count will outwit Bartolo and provide a great deal of fun in the process.

The Barber needs a street scene at the beginning where the Count with a bunch of rowdy musicians serenades Rosina at dawn. Then Figaro comes barreling down the street singing his signature aria in an outburst of unforgettable exuberance. The rest of the action takes place inside Rosina’s house.

Ponnelle, however, has added a third scene. Instead of Figaro coming down the street, the set revolves and reveals his barbershop and apartment above it. Figaro slides down a pipe and tells us about his life and talents. This is silly, of course, and not called for in the libretto. As the Count is serenading Rosina, he hears Figaro coming down the street and tells his companions to let him pass. Why Ponnelle decides to switch the scene to the barbershop at that moment is a mystery.

That is a small complaint in an otherwise outstanding production.

Michele Mariotti conducts the La Scala Orchestra briskly and the result is a great night at the opera.

SHAW FESTIVAL - THE CHERRY ORCHARD and THE WOMEN – TWO VERY DIFFERENT “COMEDIES”

Reviewed by James Karas
jameskaras@rogers.com

The Shaw Festival continues with two more openings: Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard at the Court House Theatre and Clare Booth Luce’s The Women at the Festival Theatre.

Chekhov called his final play “a comedy in four cats” but don’t expect too may laughs. He had much greater ambitions than producing laughter. In fact Chekhov gives a snapshot of Russian society on the cusp of dramatic changes; he portrays the end of an order that deserved its fate.

The people of The Cherry Orchard exist in the present and live in the past. It is an astounding portrait of a society centered on Mrs. Ranyevskaya (Laurie Paton) the owner of an estate with the cherry orchard of the title as its centerpiece. Mrs. Ranyevskaya suffered a double tragedy some years ago: the deaths of her husband and of her son. She left the estate and went to live in Paris where she met a ne’er-do-well and squandered her estate.

At the opening of the play she returns from France, broke and forced to sell her beloved cherry orchard. She and the others who depend on her appear to be oblivious to that fact that their world is crumbling around them. The estate is about to be auctioned off and some are having a party in one room while the men are playing billiards in another part of the mansion. The most significant event of the evening is that one of the men breaks a billiard cue.

Laurie Paton as Mrs. Ranyevskaya is aristocratic and statuesque but at the same time is pretty empty-headed. Her brother Gayev (Jim Mezon) is just as vacuous and ill-equipped to come to grips with reality.

The wealthy Lopakhin (Benedict Campbell), still smarting from his lower class background, acquires the estate and gets roaring drunk at his accomplishment. He wants to turn it into lots for cottages and make even more money. That is the future.

Boris (Neil Barcley) and the rest of the land-owning aristocracy display a society that is not so much moribund as already dead. The last character left on stage at the end of the play is the old servant Firs (Al Kozlik). Like most of the others, he is a left-over from another world. In fact when he was granted his freedom upon the emancipation of the serfs, he refused it and chose to remain a servant of the Ranyevskaya family. His death at the end is truly the death of the old world which did not deserve to survive.

Director Jason Byrne has chosen to pace the production at a leisurely and at times soporific gait. The characters speak slowly and the supposed Chekhovian pauses add very little. The Cherry Orchard is one of the great plays of the 20th century but I did not enjoy this production very much.

Luce’s The Women lists some 42 characters and it took 21 actors to play all the roles. All women, of course. The play opened in 1936 on Broadway and gave a personal view of the life of Park Avenue women in New York. They are catty, gossipy, bitchy, sneaky, conniving and quite funny.

Mary Haines (Jenny Young) is beautiful, rich and happily married. Unfortunately her husband has met a beautiful salesgirl at a perfume counter and has started working very late at the office. Mary’s gossipy friends find out about the affair and the result is divorce. That is what Miriam (Nicola Correia-Damude), Countess de Lage (Wendy Thatcher) and Peggy (Beryl Bain) have also done for different reasons and the four of them meet in Reno.

You need name tags to keep up with who is sleeping with whom but the play does have a satisfactory end with Mary outwitting the sleazy mistress who stole her husband.

There are some timing issues that director Alisa Palmer should have handled better. A prime example is when a manicurist starts babbling about Mr. Haines’s affair with Crystal (Moya O’Connell). The woman listening to this gets up to leave and is asked her name by the manicurist. She identifies herself as Mrs. Haines. The manicurist’s well-timed reply should have brought he house down. Unfortunately Palmer allows her to answer all too quickly and a great joke is squashed.

There are no mishaps in William Schmuck’s well designed sets and the gorgeous dresses. This is a veritable fashion show and it’s always nice to see the rich enjoying their money and being miserable with it at times. Despite some issues, The Women provides great summer fun.


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The Cherry Orchard will run until October 2, 2010 at the Court House Theatre. The Women will run until October 9, 2010 at the Festival Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com 1 800-511-SHAW

STRATFORD SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL - AS YOU LIKE IT

Reviewed by James Karas

As You Like It is one of Shakespeare’s comedies of love. By the end of the play the sun is shining, all obstacles are overcome, wooing is done and four couples are on the stage about to enter the happy state of matrimony.

It is also the play chosen to open this year’s Stratford Shakespeare Festival and one of the dozen productions that make up the season. Shakespeare gets four out of the twelve, giving him a respectable one-third share. Mind you there are also four musicals and one may argue that there is a serious overload of that genre at the expense of a mildly more adventurous choice of plays but that’s another subject.

This production of As You Like It is the brainchild of Des McAnuff, the Festival’s Artistic Director. It represents directorial self-indulgence with some very good results and some excesses that may please some people and leave others fidgeting if not shuddering.

As You Like It is set in two worlds: the world of the court and the world of the forest. In the court we meet the evil Duke Frederick who has overthrown his brother Duke Senior (both played ably by Tom Rooney) and rules with an iron fist. Parallel to the usurping Duke, is Oliver (Mike Shara) the son of the noble Sir Rowland, who mistreats his young brother Orlando and throws him out of the family estate.

Duke Senior and his followers have sought refuge in the Forest of Arden, the other world of the play. They are joined by Duke Senior’s daughter Rosalind (Andrea Runge) who is thrown out by Frederick’s daughter Celia (Cara Ricketts), both in disguise. Orlando, who has fallen in love with Rosalind, soon joins them.

McAnuff and Scenic Designer Debra Henson have some dramatic ideas about the play. This is no sunny comedy of love but a dark play that takes place in the 1920’s or 1930’s under a Nazi regime. There are Storm Troopers everywhere and Duke Frederick shoots a person just to make a point.

In the Forest of Arden the shock of red colours, large banners, and paratroopers of the court are gone and are replaced by a colouful plastic floor, panes of glass and a dead tree. The Forest of Arden may be transformative, restorative and indeed redemptive in the end but it is not a pleasant oasis of rusticity and bliss. Shakespeare provided the melancholy philosopher Jaques to remind us of that, in any event.

Emphasizing the dark side of the play is a legitimate approach to it and its other qualities come out in any event without excessive attention to the comedy and the triumph of love. The rustics are very well done and very funny. McAnuff, however, cannot think of a trick or gimmick without putting it on. Storm troopers are expressive enough. Do we really need one with the head of a jackal or characters with heads covered with flowers or the horns of a stag or the face of a lion? Do they add much to the play?

There is overuse of exiting through the theatre aisles instead of the usual exits below the stage and putting Celia and Rosalind in a steam bath may not be strictly necessary.

Unstinting praise should go to the actors for speaking clearly with attention to the poetry and doing a generally superb job. Ricketts is a sassy and lively Rosalind nicely matched by a first-rate performance by Paul Nolan as Orlando.

Ben Carlson was funny as the court fool Touchstone, and Randy Hughson and Lucy Peacock was hilarious as Corin and Audrey. Dalal Badr and Dan Chameroy did fine work as Phoebe and William.

Brent Carver, dressed in a dark suit and bowler and carrying an umbrella as if he were a British barrister or banker, underplayed the role of Jaques, the cynical philosopher, to good effect.

Shakespeare’s poetry came shining through, the laughs were there and the incongruity of such a play being given a Nazi setting added interest and brought out the complexity of the play. We could have done with fewer gimmicks but the fine acting made the evening all worthwhile.

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As You Like It by William Shakespeare opened on June 7 and will run until October 31, 2010 at the Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. http://www.stratfordfestival.ca/ 1-800-567-1600

SHAW FESTIVAL OPENS WITH A HOME RUN, A TRIPLE AND A BASE HIT

by James Karas
jameskaras@rogers.com

This year’s Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake offers ten productions including a lunchtime performance of a play by J.M. Barrie whose title, Half an Hour, discloses its length.

The Festival’s patron playwright, Bernard Shaw, is again a minority shareholder with only two plays but he does get 50% more than anyone else. The Irish do get three plays, same as the Americans, while the English get two and the Russians and Canadians merit one each.

I saw three productions last week and will review them in order of preference.

HARVEY

Mary Chase’s Harvey is one of those plays that if you see it once you never forget it. In fact even people who have never seen it may know about that play with the six-foot invisible rabbit. Yes, that’s the one and the Shaw Festival has given it a first rate production full of charm and laughter in an almost fairy tale atmosphere.

Elwood P. Dowd (Peter Krantz) is a bachelor who lives somewhere in America and represents utter decency and love of humanity. He tried being smart, he tells us, for about forty years and did not like it. He switched to being nice and has found happiness. Happiness comes with visits to almost every bar in town accompanied by his friend Harvey who happens to be a six-foot plus rabbit. Like all rabbits of that description, Harvey is invisible to the normal eye but his presence is quite palpable to Elwood and, as the evening progresses, perhaps, to some other people.

Elwood’s socially ambitious sister Veta (Mary Haney) finds Elwood and Harvey a bit of an embarrassment and would like to commit the former to a psychiatric facility. She takes him to young Dr. Sanderson (Gray Powell) and old Dr. Chumley (Norman Browning) but Elwood so charms Nurse Kelly (Diana Donnelly) that Veta is committed instead of Elwood.

This calls for a lawsuit and Judge Omar Gaffney (Guy Bannerman) is summoned. The result, aside from hilarity, is a touching parable about human decency, good manners, indeed chivalry, and virtues that are almost never honoured.

Director Joseph Ziegler succeeds in bringing out the humour and humanity of the play in full measure. For Peter Krantz the role of Elwood P. Dowd must be a godsend and a career-defining performance for he excels in it. He brings out both the naiveté and intelligence of Elwood who knows a few things about life despite the apparent impression of almost no-screws left emanating from his relationship with Harvey.

Mary Haney is excellent as his uptight sister assisted in equal measure by Zarrin Darnell-Martin as her daughter Myrtle Mae. Veteran Norman Brown produces much laughter as the arrogant psychiatrist Chumley who is brought down a few pegs by drink and Elwood’s ‘reality’.

Diana Donnelly’s Nurse Kelly is attractive and humane when Dr. Sanderson is dumb and professional and both do excellent work.

The play has two sets, the paneled library of the Dowd mansion and the cold reception room of the psychiatric facility. Aside from well-designed sets by Sue LePage, the crew does heroic and extremely efficient work in changing scenes without intermission.

The Shaw scores a home run and Harvey is, as they say, a must-see.

ONE TOUCH OF VENUS

The production of a musical is de rigueur at the Shaw but great credit is due to Artistic Director Jackie Maxwell for choosing works of substantial quality that have been almost forgotten. This year’s selection is One Touch of Venus by Kurt Weill, Ogden Nash and S.J. Perelman. It was a big hit when it opened on Broadway in 1943 but it has been revived only sporadically ever since.

Weill (music), Nash (lyrics) and Nash and Perelman (book) make an all-star team for writing a musical. The result may not have been stellar but it is a work with wit, humour and some superb music. If some of the wit is out of the reach of today’s audience it is not the fault of the writers. Times and context change.

One Touch of Venus is a fairy tale about a statue of the goddess of love coming to life in New York and falling in love with a hapless barber named Rodney Hatch (Kyle Blair).

Venus (Robin Evan Willis) disposes of Rodney’s screeching fiancée Gloria (Julie Martell) - sic transit Gloria – and the two lovers survive some scrapes including a stint in jail. But the two finally come through and are finally free to live happily ever after in a suburb of New York!

The production, in the small but elegant Royal George Theatre, (capacity 328), has the equivalent feel of watching the race scene from Ben-Hur on a 19” TV after seeing it on the big screen. You get the benefit of being close to the stage but that does not make up for the lack of a large stage for a large Broadway musical.

You get a lot of music from a 10-piece orchestra but it is a compromise. How much better would it sound with 28 instruments in a large theatre!

As for the performers, Robin Evan Willis has a gorgeous body that even Venus would have approved of – the Venus de Milo and the slim-hipped, all-too-angelic rendition of Botticelli. If Willis’s face does not quite satisfy one’s image of Venus, it is probably because no woman can. Unfortunately, her vocal ability does not match the curves of her body. She needs to soar at times but, alas, she cannot and all you get is volume instead of high notes.

Kyle Blair does a good comic job as the henpecked barber who has landed a goddess but his voice falls short of expectations. When he attempts to ascend the musical scale, he comes perilously close to releasing a flat screech.

The idea of an incarnated Venus is so delicious it energizes the imagination like a fairy tale remembered from childhood. If the production does not satisfy all our theatrical appetites the way nectar and ambrosia sated the gods, we do not leave the theatre hungry.

No doubt one can visualize a better production of One Touch of Venus just as one can imagine a better Venus but the one is more difficult to achieve than the other. In the meantime, imagination in full throttle, you can start your search in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Give it a triple.

AN IDEAL HUSBAND

The Festival opened with Oscar Wilde’s 1895 comedy An Ideal Husband. If you remove the wit, the epigrams and the balanced sentences from the play, you will end up with a melodrama that no Artistic Director would touch with a ten-foot instrument. In the hands of Wilde, however, melodrama became scintillating comedy.

I wish I could say that director Jackie Maxwell and Designer Judith Bowden have put together a production that does justice to the play and to the audience.

Sir Robert Chiltern (Patrick Galligan) is happily married, has a big house, is wealthy and is Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He is a man of rectitude, ability, honour and … well, he is too good to be true. His wife, Lady Chiltern (Catherine McGregor), another upstanding person, simply adores him.

His nemesis quickly appears in the person Mrs. Chevely (Moya O’Connell) who wants to blackmail him. She knows that Sir Robert made his fortune by using insider information and therefore is a fraud. She has a letter to prove it.

How does one stop Mrs. Chevely from wreaking havoc in this man’s life and what will his wife say if she finds out. That is a toughie but the Chiltern’s good friend and man-about-town Lord Goring (Steven Sutcliffe) may find a solution. Where did Mrs. Chevely get that nice brooch that she was wearing last night?

For much of the first two acts, the audience sat in almost funeral silence. They emitted a bit of laughter here and there but not much. During the last two acts there was some more laughter but Wilde’s play was getting a very poor return on its excellent lines.

What went right? Catherine McGregor, dressed beautifully (as were most of the women) managed to exude the upper-crust English hauteur. Moya O’Connell’s Mrs. Chevely was from the same class but a nasty blackmailer and abuser. Well done. Anthony Bekenn managed to get most of the laughs as the imperturbable servant Phipps.

What went wrong? Just about everything else. The play opens in a gorgeous two-story room full of people, in the Chiltern residence. Here we have a dimly lit room, almost all black and seriously in need of a decorator with a modicum of good taste. It is a depressing and simply awful set. Lord Goring’s apartment looks like a warehouse that is about to be converted into lofts and his smoking room looks like a storage area. Again, simply awful.

The play requires the crisp, upper-crust English accent that makes the wit and epigrams sound as if they were cut from glass. Can Canadian actors do such an accent? If they can they are few and far between and there was little evidence of that in this production. Patrick Galligan can play many roles but he does not convince us that he is made of fine-grained prime ministerial timber. Steven Sutcliffe comes closer as Lord Goring but he is a long way from the accent of the nobility. And what was that ridiculous vest with an apron doing on him? He is supposed to be stylish not a dork.

This Ideal Husband needs to lighten up. First, literally by turning up the lights and giving the set a good paint job with light-coloured tints. Then get the actors to pick up the pace, brush up on those accents and generate some energy and some laughter before the season is quite over.

Give it a base hit.

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An Ideal Husband will run until October 31, 2010 at the Festival Theatre. One Touch of Venus and Harvey will run until October 10 and 31, 2010 respectively at the Royal George Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com 1 800-511-SHAW

IDOMENEO DONE BY TRAINEES AND MAGNIFICENT FLYING DUTCHMAN FROM CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY

Erin Fisher as Idamante and Laura Albino as Ilia in Idomeneo. Photo: Michael Cooper.

Reviewed by James Karas
jameskaras@rogers.com


The Canadian Opera Company wraps up its current season with two operas about the terrible fate of two seamen who tangle with supernatural powers. One of them is a Greek and the other is a Dutchman.

King Idomeneus of Crete runs into a violent storm on his way back from the Trojan War. He vows to the sea god Neptune that if he is saved he will sacrifice the first person that he sees on land. He is saved and the first person he sees is his son Idamantes.

A Dutch sea captain challenges the devil and vows to go around the Cape of Good Hope if it takes forever. He is condemned to sail the high seas and touch land only once every seven years. He can find redemption only if he finds a woman who will love him unto death.

The story of Idomeneus has been captured for the stage by Mozart in his 1781 opera seria Idomeneo and the hapless Dutch captain gained operatic immortality in Richard Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman which premiered in 1843.

Idomeneo is directed by Francois de Carpentries and boasts of Isabel Bayrakdarian, Kristina Szabo and Paul Groves, among others, in the cast. For the May 19th performance, they were all given a night off and were replaced by members of the Ensemble Studio, the training arm of the COC.

The singers were put through a number of weeks of training and rehearsals for the performance and given a chance to perform in a major production. The result was something well beyond an amateur production but it did have some rough edges, some infelicitous singing and awkwardness. Mozart was always at hand to carry the performance, however, warts and all.

Idomeneo being an opera seria the singers are frequently handed lengthy recitatives or arias and left on their own. They provide true tests of one’s mettle.

Tenor Michael Colvin, dressed like a South American dictator, epaulets and all, was a good Idomeneo vocally but I found his stage movements awkward, not to say incomprehensible. He seemed to go all over the place at times and I am not sure if it was for dramatic purposes or for exercise.

The role of Ilia, the captive Trojan Princess in love with Idamante, was split between Laura Albino in the first half and Simone Osborne in the second half. Albino got to do the bulk of the work in the first two acts of the opera but I think Osborne had the vocal edge on her in the third act where the workload is lighter.

Erin Fisher is listed as a mezzo soprano and she sang the role of Idamante. She has a very light, colourless voice and her Idamante came out as simply insipid. The role should probably been given to a tenor as is done frequently or to a fine mezzo soprano.

Ileana Montalbetti sang the role of Electra, the Argive princess. She has a commanding stage presence and a considerable voice. Electra is in love with Idamante and things are not looking good for her. What is worse, the Greek princess is about to lose the Greek prince to Ilia, a foreigner and a former enemy of the Greeks.

The result is that Electra is pretty angry, no, make that furious. Her rage is apparent throughout but really comes out in Act III in her aria “D’Oreste, d’Aiace”. Montalbetti has the vocal range for the role but she could not convey all the rage. Too bad in an otherwise fine performance.

The set was very effective suggesting scenes away from the ship on the right and the ships and sea on the left, including indications of scenes under water.

The Flying Dutchman receives a magnificent production with superb performances from the principals.

The current production is a revival of the COC’s 2000 staging directed by Christopher Alden with Set and Costume designs by Allen Meyer. The dominant stage prop is a ship’s wheel. There is a path stage front leading to the raised platform that serves as a ship’s deck and Daland’s home. It is effective without being overwhelming.

Russian bass baritone Evgeny Nikitin was the distraught Dutchman and he moved with poise and sang with superb sonority. Soprano Julie Makerov’s Senta displayed vocal beauty but her costume made her looking like a cleaning lady. I expected her to grab a mop and pail any minute and start scrubbing the deck.

Swedish bass Mats Almgren was a fine Daland and German tenor Robert Kunzli was very god as the hunter Erik who loses Senta to the Dutchman.

At the end of the opera, the Dutchman becomes convinced that Senta will not be faithful to death – after all she just betrayed Erik. But Senta wants to be faithful and when the Dutchman leaves her behind, she throws herself into the sea. The Dutchman’s ship sinks and he and Senta are transfigured and rise toward heaven. In the COC version, a more practical solution is found. Erik the hunter shoots Senta and the Dutchman goes up the winding stairs to god-knows-where.
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Idomeneo by W. A. Mozart was performed by the Ensemble Studio on May 19, 2010. The Flying Dutchman by Richard Wagner was performed eight times between April 24 and May 20, 2010 the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario. Tel: 416-363-6671. www.coc.ca