April 28-May 4, 2005

opera

Pretty Good In Pink

by David Shengold

Great to hear one of Handel's many miraculous operas played in the intimate Prince — for that matter played in Philadelphia at all — but Curtis Opera Theater's Alcina proved somewhat disappointing. Chas Rader-Shieber's production singularly lacked any sense of magic or the transformative power (and danger) of desire. The man-devouring sorceress Alcina's magic island became some kind of banal pink '60s honeymoon hotel, with little sister Morgana meeting all arrivals with a Polaroid. The sisters' wands did little but control lamps: They might as well have been remotes. Rader-Shieber had singers doing so much business with irrelevant props that the audience got scarce sense of who most of these people (well-defined in music and libretto) were. Presumably, the point of postmodern stagings is defamiliarization; when directors slip into routine posturing in contemporary dress, have we arrived at post-postmodernism?

Despite occasional foursquare tempi, conductor Sarah Hatsuko Hicks supported the singers creditably. Perhaps through some trick of the acoustics, the violin section sounded rather muddied throughout. But solo instruments playing obbligato (including cello and woodwinds) shined. Singing Handel is a skill increasingly demanded of young vocalists; the Curtis faculty has clearly put in some stylistic work on declamation and decoration, though more will be needed (no one could really trill, and a few too many recitatives slipped from pitch).

Heidi Melton (Alcina) showed a lustrous, beautiful instrument that should guarantee her a future (though perhaps not in baroque music). Stageworthy Howard Reddy, already embarked on a promising professional career, possesses a finely focused baritone coping capably with divisions; but Ruggiero's music (written for castrato) lies awkwardly for a baritone. Most of this key character's arias were truncated to their initial "A" sections; the most beautiful of all ("Mi lusinga") summarily cut. Another disfiguring cut was the highly emotional chorus of men, freed from Alcina's enchantment by Ruggiero and Bradamante — the opera's emotional climax and the only reason the lovers stick around for its last 20 minutes. Elif Ezgi Kutlu, with expressive eyes and fleet coloratura, made a satisfying Bradamante. Laura Rey, mustering the right comic persona for Morgana, generally sang delightfully, though occasionally overambitious in interpolations (influenced by Natalie Dessay on CD?). Brenden Patrick Gunnell is as yet a low-wattage stage animal, but his ductile tenor dispatched Oronte's beautiful arias with style.

Alcina April 22, Curtis Opera Theater at Prince Music Theater