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Capitol City Opera’s Hilarious Double Bill
OPERA REVIEW Mozart's "The Impresario" and Puccini's "Gianni Schicchi." Capitol City Opera at Oglethorpe University's Conant Performing Arts Center. www.ccityopera.com
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
They’ve got a nothing budget and use mostly amateur talent and students. Yet Atlanta’s Capitol City Opera Company typically delivers a really enjoyable show. Imagine it — community opera. One production after another, it comes as a slight shock how smartly they deploy their resources, how convincingly they reveal the emotional (or comic, or tragic) core of a story, how well they sing.
But there’s a paradox: simple, straight-ahead productions sometimes feel muddled while complex and plot-rich stories often ring clear and true.
So it was over the weekend for a double bill of one-act comedies. Mozart’s “The Impresario” — with three characters and almost no plot — rarely took off, while Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi” — a character-heavy and densely scored opera — amused the audience to no end. Aside from the orchestra, which had its scrappy moments conducted by Robert Trocina, it’s like the Cap City players feed off the challenge of the impossible.
In recent years, Michael Nutter has been the company’s regular stage director. With the retirement last season of company founder Donna Angel, for its 25th anniversary, Nutter is now artistic director. More than ever, his style — underplaying the obvious while searching for deeper truths, all with a light, unaffected touch — has become the house style.
“The Impresario” is mostly spoken dialogue with a few arias, duets and trios — called a “singspiel” — and is fueled by one gag: an impresario attempts to hire rival sopranos to sing together in an opera.
But which donna is prima?
From our seats, it was the Senorita Warblewell of Katherine Uhle, raised in Texas and a recent Kennesaw State University grad. Nutter made Uhle’s Paris Hilton looks (long skinny legs, platinum hair, pink sunglasses) central to updating the comedy. And she can sing: a bright, focused soprano with her breathing under control and good diction and a pleasing “bite” in her tone.
Alicia Grugett, as the veteran Madame Heartmelt, displayed her own virtues, comically switching from a daffy Brooklyn speaking accent to robust Italianate singing — a charmer.
The boyish impresario, tenor Wesley B. Morgan, cut an uncertain figure in Mozart, though he fit in nicely after intermission as the romantic hero for Puccini.
Actually, the boy-loves-girl part of “Gianni Schicchi” is only subplot that serves as motivation for the opera’s epic shenanigans. Their love also leads to the opera’s most famous aria — a staple of romantic movies and TV commercials — “O mio babbino caro.” (The evening’s few sour notes came from Emily Parrott as Loretta, who pleads with her “dear daddy” the title character, yet couldn’t settle into a key that agreed with her.)
Big bass-baritone John LaForge, with a glint in his eye and warmth in his voice, commanded the stage as Schicchi. It’s a great role, drawn from a few lines of Dante’s “Inferno.” When a rich old man dies, leaving his fortune to the Church, his greedy relatives hire the crafty Schicchi to re-write the will. It backfires on them, of course, with Schicci leaving the riches to himself.
The nine or so relatives were well cast, too, each creating an almost-rounded persona. (The medieval-style costumes helped.) Standouts among them included bass Joseph Lowery, contralto Elizabeth Cooper Pettitt and tenor Phong Nguyen. Nick Etherington, a theater major at Oglethorpe, played the corpse hilariously — the sort of small detail with a big payoff that’s a Capitol City hallmark.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Classical Music
Comments
By Bradley
September 16, 2008 10:53 AM | Link to this
I laughed a lot at what I saw, but I cried at what I heard. Good theatre but horrible operatic performance. The orchestra was aweful and intonation and rhythm was never a consideration. It seemed that the singers missed more notes and entrances than they got right. Maybe Cap City should just do theatre instead of opera. This is far from the calibre of what I used to see from them! What happened?
By Never Tell
September 16, 2008 11:13 AM | Link to this
Yeah, I agree. I had friends in the show and I went to support them. I guess the Capital City Opera serves a purpose but I would never work with them. That show was kind of embarrassing. At least there weren’t that many people there to see it.
By Diva
September 16, 2008 12:54 PM | Link to this
I was in the show and I think some of the comments are mean. The problem was that everything was disorganized from the start. I was nervous that we wouldn’t even be ready in time for opening night. I agree with the comments about the little orchestra. My high school was better. I learned a lot but I think I learned more about what not to do in the future.