September 4, 2007
Opera devotees get feast of plenty
It might not be generally recognized, but opera fans can usually find a few worthy productions each season to visit hereabouts. This coming one is no exception, and at least one of them will make my must-see list.
The one I want to see above all is Florida Grand Opera’s production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare, which bows in April with the American soprano Leah Partridge as Cleopatra (in photo by Deborah Gray Mitchell).
Handel (pictured at the top of this entry) was above all a man of the theater, but it’s only been within the last decade that opera companies have turned to his rich trove of Italian works. What impresses on listening to them is the gracefulness of his melodies and orchestral writing; he seems to me always to be wooing the listener into his confidence, and while much of the exposition can seem static, a good production should be able to make it all move along.
The rest of FGO’s season includes another semi-rarity, Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, while the other three spots are given to Puccini (Tosca and Boheme) and Mozart (Cosi).
It’s too bad that the company has had to retrench from last season’s six operas, but perhaps that was only temporary. David Carlson’s Anna Karenina was well worth the effort by this nearly 70-year-old company, and with the renewal of interest everywhere in opera as an art form, it may be that it will be entrusted with another premiere.
The four opera season of the Palm Beach Opera opens in December with Puccini’s Turandot, still an all-time favorite of mine (though I’ve yet to hear a live production with the full Alfano ending). I’ll try to catch that one.
The other three operas for PBO this year are Beethoven’s Fidelio, Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore and La Traviata, Verdi’s most popular opera.
Up north on the Treasure Coast, impresario and former jai alai champion Carlos Barrena has been bringing opera to Fort Pierce for 28 years. Rising young singers and durable veterans are usually part of the casts at his Treasure Coast Opera Society.
This season features three operas: L’Elisir, Tosca and the Cav and Pag double bill. The TCOS now does its productions at the restored Sunrise Theatre in historic Fort Pierce, a nice change from the St. Lucie County Civic Center, which wasn’t designed for theater.
Two other guest productions also are coming to the Kravis Center: Tosca, from the Bulgarian company Teatro Lirica d’Europa (who mounted a decent Butterfly a couple years ago) and H.M.S. Pinafore, the Gilbert and Sullivan naval sendup in a production from the Carl Rosa Opera Company, which is getting good reviews for its recent mounting in England of G&S’s Patience, the Victorian team’s walk on the Wilde side.
I should also mention the Sarasota Opera out west, which has been doing revivals of unfamiliar masterworks for years now, and which last season did Halka, the masterpiece of Poland’s Stanislaw Moniuszko.
This year, the Sarasotans are planning I Due Foscari, a rarely seen but critically admired Verdi opera from the master’s early years (1844). Puccini’s La Rondine, a lovely little work that's almost never heard these days, is coming as well, and either would be a good reason for me to head over in March or April (the other two are Cosi and Rigoletto.)
So that's three Toscas, two Cosis, and two L'Elisirs, if you're counting.
Finally, Palm Beach’s Society of the Four Arts (a Website update is coming) is joining the houses that are mounting the live high-definition multicasts of the Metropolitan Opera that were a breakout success during their debut season for Peter Gelb’s new regime in New York.
The Met has expanded its broadcasts to eight operas this year, and a couple of them strike me as must-sees: Britten's Peter Grimes on March 15 and Wagner's Tristan und Isolde on March 22 (the others are Gounod's Romeo et Juliette; Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel; Verdi's Macbeth; two by Puccini — Manon Lescaut and Boheme — and Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment). I'll probably bring my score to Tristan, too.
