June 10-16, 2004

art

The Night Is Young

FATHER-DAUGHTER DANCE: Christine Arand (Gilda) and Lawrence Harris (Rigoletto) receive direction from Center City Opera Theater's Jonathon Loy for their production of Verdi's Rigoletto. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Center City Opera Theater makes its Kimmel debut.

by Peter Burwasser

Life is an opera. Of course, that is why the art form has such a powerful allure, even for those who would never dream that they would fall in love with this strange and wonderful world. And composers over the years have not resisted the temptation to make the creation of their work the very stuff of an opera plot, in the way that Fellini, Truffaut and others have made the act of filmmaking the core of their dramas.

Philadelphia's Center City Opera Theater may someday commission a musical drama revolving around their own birth and development, and it would be a compelling tale.

Philadelphia opera fans may remember a company by the name of the Opera Theater of Philadelphia — a taut, youthful ensemble producing vibrant productions of standard repertoire at Centennial Hall in Haverford. In fact, they never really went away, but hibernated while music director and founder Andrew Kurtz plotted a return to a Center City stage. "We had a board meeting and we agreed that it would not be viable to maintain an opera company on the Main Line," says Kurtz. It seems, ironically enough, that well-heeled suburbanites prefer to lap up culture in the big city, and tend to ignore the pools of culture in their own back yard. Future librettists take note; here is a good subplot in our thickening stew.

"It was almost a miracle," says Kurtz, "but two weeks opened up at Perelman because of a cancellation." Thus, in Kurtz's ambition, was born the potential for the first resident opera company at the Kimmel's Perelman Theater. But there was a sticky little problem with the name. It was, says Kurtz with sly tact, "a concern about confusion" that was brought to his attention by a group that goes by the name of the Opera Company of Philadelphia. Lawyers were engaged, but a solution was amicably arrived at, and the Center City Opera Theater began life anew. Kurtz says, "We've ended up with a better name. Robert [Driver, director of OCP] has wished us the best of luck." There really is no competition, especially in an opera-hungry city. "They produce grand opera, we produce intimate opera."

On to Act 2. The 37-year-old Kurtz teams up with Jonathon Loy, a 24-year-old opera director and native of Philadelphia, who dreamt of working in his hometown. Loy — who has worked with opera companies in Cleveland, Cincinnati, New York, Seattle and Italy — becomes the company's producing general director. A duet ensues. Kurtz: "The great thing was to get into rehearsal and see we have the same vision." Loy: "We have titles, because we are supposed to, but we both do marketing, hiring and make artistic decisions." Kurtz: "I feel we have the making of a great partnership and company." Loy: "I direct the music. I'm a musician first."

But Center City Opera Theater — the Opera, will have to wait. For now, they will make their Kimmel Center debut with Verdi's Rigoletto, which features a gloriously dark story, with a title character whose fate you might not wish upon your worst enemy. Rigoletto, the hunchbacked court jester who is devoted to his daughter to a tragic fault, is one of the singular roles in all of opera, repulsive and sympathetic at once, as fleshed out with Verdi's genius. For Loy, "Finding the line between good and evil is not possible. Every character has within them the possibility to fall to either of the two worlds."

Loy plans to exploit the relatively intimate space at Perelman, with minimal blocking and spare scenery. And as Kurtz observes, "Seventy percent of the score is in the piano [quiet] range. In this space, the singers can produce a real pianissimo, which is in the score. We have three singers of amazing vocal color."

Of course, there are far more than three singers in Rigoletto, but Kurtz is referring to the big central roles. Having chosen the epicenter of the Philadelphia music scene as their venue, and one of the greatest of operas as the medium, Kurtz and Loy were not about to pull up short on casting. The title role will be taken by the immensely charismatic baritone Lawrence Harris, who, prior to taking up opera singing, played professional football for the Houston Oilers and the Buffalo Bills (yet another subplot for our future libretto). The haunting role of Gilda, his doomed daughter, will be sung by the lovely young soprano Christine Arand. A student of the great Italian soprano Renata Scotto, she recently sang Musetta in Baz Luhrmann's hit production of La Bohéme on Broadway. And John Pickle, in the role of the cad Duke of Mantua, is possessed of a rich and ringing tenor voice.

Rigoletto, like so many operas, ends with betrayal, death and despair. Great theater, to be sure, but not a good business model for this fledgling company. A rousing, triumphal scene would be more like it. Kurtz and Loy are looking ahead, with plans to continue many outreach programs designed to introduce neophytes to opera, such as the recent series of noontime coffee-klatch lectures at the Broad-and-Pine Starbucks and talks at Tower Records. And they have retained a consultant from the Seattle Opera to create a five-year-plan. Kurtz says, "We're young, and have no preconceptions. We intend to be around of a long time."

Rigoletto, June 11-12, $22-$92, Center City Opera Theater , Kimmel Center, 300 S. Broad St., 215-893-1999.