James Karas
Toronto Operetta Theatre deserves credit for plugging a hole
in the amusement availability gap between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. This
year’s lifter-upper is Sigmund Romberg’s The Student Prince. It is an
energetic and enjoyable production done, as usual for TOT, on a modest budget.
If the “Overhead moon is shining,” and you are in your
“Golden Days” of “Student life” and “Drink, drink, drink” when the garlands are
bright deep in your heart in Heidelberg then you are in operettaland or in
Karlsberg watching The Student Prince. If
all of those things are happening to you and you are not at the St. Lawrence
centre, you are delusional.
Stefan Fehr, Jennifer Taverner, Adam Norrad and Ernesto Ramirez. Photo Gary Beechey
The classic
1924 operetta is based on Old Heidelberg, a play by German
playwright Wilhelm Meyer-Förster with book and lyrics by Dorothy Donnelly.
Director Guillermo Silva-Marin takes advantage of the beautiful melodies, the
rousing ensemble songs, the comic elements and the romantic entanglements to
provide an entertaining evening at the theatre.
The student
prince of the title, sung by Mexican tenor Ernesto Ramirez, is sent to
Heidelberg University to study. He meets some rowdy students and Kathie, the
innkeeper’s lovely niece. I will let you
fill in some of the blanks about what happens after that. Ramirez has lovely
voice and he can sing piano and even
better forte where he belts out his
lyrical phrases. My only complaint about him is his enunciation. He can use a
bit more drilling to cease obscuring parts of some words.
Soprano Jennifer Taverner is the winsome Kathie – lively,
sweet-voiced and the type of girl a prince will fall for, put her “Deep in my
heart” and dream of living happily-ever-after with her alone.
Three members of the female vocal ensemble take on solo
roles as well and do a good job, namely: soprano Carrie Parks as the haughty
Grand Duchess Anastasia, mezzo soprano Dina Shikhman as Princess Margaret, a
woman who knows how to get her man, and mezzo soprano Katerina Utochkina who
has a similar talent.
The operetta has its share of comic characters from the overbearing
but ineffective prince’s valet Lutz, (played struttingly by Sean Curran) to the
waiter Toni (Ryan Moilliet) to the students and members of the Saxon Corps.
Some of the comic business misfired but the audience enjoyed the comedy
overall.
Bass-baritone Curtis Sullivan sang with his usual resonance,
the role of the humane Doctor Engel.
Derek Bate conducted the small orchestra, almost a band
really, which nevertheless gave a spirited performance of the score.
Toronto Operetta Theatre is in its thirtieth year and it
bears repeating that it is the conception, creation and continuation of
Guillermo Silva-Marin. For The Student
Prince, he is credited with stage direction, décor and lighting design. The
production succeeds because of his talents but suffers from shortage of funds.
More funding would provide better decor from the few items to indicate a palace
antechamber, an inn garden and a palace. A bigger orchestra would help and a
more plush theatre would be a definite asset.
He does a great deal with the sparse resources at hand. Toronto
owes him a great debt for bringing and keeping operetta in the city almost
single handed.
TOT’s next production will be Los Gavilanes by Jacinto
Guerrero, a zarzuela dating from 1923, that, as happens so often, will be getting
its Canadian premiere.
________
The Student Prince by Sigmund Romberg opened on December 27, 2015
and will be performed five times until January 3, 2016 at the Jane Mallett
Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front Street East, Toronto,
Ontario. Tel: (416) 366-7723. www.stlc.com or www.torontooperetta.com
No comments:
Post a Comment