Cl...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/10/09/voice-and-virtue http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/10/09/voice-and-virtue

Lovely lyric soprano Ailyn Pérez is one of many AVA graduates now rocketing to worldwide fame. After acclaim with regional opera companies and orchestras, her career soared this summer when she appeared at Austria's super-glam Salzburg Festival. This week she makes her Opera Company of Philadelphia debut as Marzelline in Beethoven's stirring Fidelio opposite world-class leads Christine Goerke and Anthony Dean Griffey.

City Paper: Where did you grow up, and with what musical influences?

Ailyn Pérez: I am a second-generation Mexican-American and grew up in a close-knit, large extended family [in Elk Grove Village, Ill.]. Holidays were celebrated with as many women as possible making tamales, talking together and getting the children together to show off by singing a Mexican ballad called "Paloma" with our grandmother.

CP: I understand you married Philly tenor Stephen Costello just last month. What's it like singing with him onstage?

AP: Stephen and I were friends and colleagues at AVA and trained and performed together before we started dating in 2005, so besides being one another's biggest fans, we can openly discuss phrasing and ideas. We really complement each other vocally and musically, too, so that's been a great advantage.

CP: Any interest in crossover work?

AP: A Mexican album of sensual duets and ballads with the best mariachi in Guadalajara, maybe singing with Alejandro Fernández. Singing and dancing with Usher is one of my dreams — and meeting Missy Elliott and seeing if she would produce my debut video of opera arias. And I'd love to sing Maria in...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/05/22/blind-ambition http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/05/22/blind-ambition

Commentators often condescend to Tchaikovsky's ultra-romantic final opera, Iolanta, a tuneful story of a medieval blind princess whose faith in love wins her sight. Ironically — given its fairy-tale trappings — few operas deal so openly with questions of what it means to grow up, awaken to sexuality and learn to trust someone. There's Dvorák's tragic Rusalka; but Iolanta ends in triumph — as did this concert production, propulsively led by Rossen Milanov, whose fine forces brought out the score's many felicitous details of orchestration.

Amanda Majeski (Iolanta), a lyric soprano with reserves of power, fine dynamic control and an expressive sound, proved excellent as both actress and singer. Rising tenor Dominic Armstrong (Vaudémont, Iolanta's suitor and the first person to tell her she's blind) was suffering from severe allergies, which passing problems in intonation and voice production confirmed. Yet he phrased with admirable musicality, often singing very well. Everyone involved evidenced vocal talent, especially the sonorous women's quartet: Tammy Coil, Ashley Thouret, and two particularly starry sopranos, Karen Jesse and Allison Sanders.

Having a strong orchestra onstage behind them — instead of in the pit — challenged some still-developing voices, since Tchaikovsky asks for expansive phrases at emotional climaxes. Evan Hughes (King René, the heroine's father), Adrian Kramer (Robert, her arranged fiancé) and Marquita Raley (her nurse) all need to learn how to walk and stand onstage with greater expressive maturity, yet all three exhibited clear virtues. At unpressured moments Hughes showed a warm lyric bass, singing Ren...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/05/15/routinely-amazing http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/05/15/routinely-amazing

La Traviata is a stage work of enormous emotional range, and many a large production has reined in some of the more rambunctious, even histrionic elements of the perennial favorite. Not so AVA. Theirs was a staging that celebrated a bigness of expression in a way made more startling given the tiny confines of the theater on Spruce Street. In the large party scenes, the stage overflowed with hyperkinetic bodies, and the garish multicolored lighting suggested that the character of the title, Violetta, was not merely a courtesan, but an out-and-out whore. And as always with AVA, there is the rich, powerful conducting of Christofer Macatsoris, punctuating the music with strong accents, and moving the action along at a steady but never hectic clip.

Director Dorothy Danner regularly manages to work magic with smoke and mirrors on the diminutive stage here, and the brilliance and passion of Macatsoris should never be taken for granted. But one goes to AVA shows primarily to hear the consistently remarkable young singers. Even minor roles were well turned out, such as the menacingly unctuous Barone Douphol of Steven LaBrie, and Nina Yoshida Nelsen's touchingly doting performance as Violetta's maid, Annina. The leads this evening were especially well matched vocally. Jan Cornelius as Violetta, and Michael Fabiano as Alfredo both possess large, ringing voices that they are unafraid to use in a boldly theatrical fashion, even at the risk of an occasional wobbly phrase. These kids were not playing it safe.

Their respective acting abilities were, however, not on the same level. Fabiano, a third-year student, has improved immensely since his earlier days at AVA. But Cornelius is a complete natural, right...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/04/17/gaul-interrupted http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/04/17/gaul-interrupted

Bellini's 1831 Norma packs a huge musical-dramatic punch, and anyone interested in truly grand Italian opera should catch the Opera Company's current production. If unevenly conducted (Corrado Rovaris) and directed (Kay Walker Castaldo), it certainly presents a better leading quartet than did the Metropolitan Opera's fall version of the same opera.

Like many modern directors, Castaldo assumes that contemporary audiences cannot be trusted with synopses, thus staging much of the overture as a backstory showing how the Roman proconsul Pollione met and wooed the Druid priestess Norma. Worse story violations follow, providing images befitting a Lifetime movie about contemporary divorce: Pollione, onstage too often and too familiarly, plays with the couple's sons (hidden as per the libretto) in a public space visible to all. It makes no sense that the hated Pollione is continually within easy killing reach of his enemy, the Druids. That the little kids hang off their parents' arms during their furious confrontations and while Norma bonds with Adalgisa (Pollione's other, younger Druid love interest) — as well as, incredibly, in the wrenching final scene as the lead couple go to their death by fire — is just misguided, anachronistic sentimentality. John Conklin's sets offer intriguing perspectives, but the jumbled costumes seem like leftovers.

The overture — incorporating ever-loathsome slow-motion battle — spoiled the mystery of Norma's famously challenging entrance scena, when any prima donna would be better off calmly backstage. Christine Goerke, her voice noticeably grown in power, has made considerable strides in mastering this murderously tough iconic role since her fi...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/04/03/aria-from-around-here http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/04/03/aria-from-around-here

Bass Eric Owens, 37, grew up in Mount Airy, attended Central High, Temple and Curtis — and has been conquering the world ever since, with appearances at major opera houses and orchestras all over North America and Europe. He's created tailor-made major roles in Elliot Goldenthal's Grendel (Los Angeles, 2006) and John Adams' Doctor Atomic (San Francisco, 2005); the latter will furnish his Metropolitan Opera debut next season. Starting in 2001, the Opera Company of Philadelphia has presented him in Mozart and Verdi leads; he returns for Vincenzo Bellini's great epic of love and war between Romans and Gauls, Norma, playing Oroveso, the priestly father of the title heroine (OCP favorite Christine Goerke).

City Paper: Why are there so many great singers from Philly?

Eric Owens: I don't know, maybe there's something in that Schuylkill water, man!

CP: Bellini is considered a "bel canto" composer. People always ask: Doesn't every opera require "beautiful singing"?

EO: I've done a few Bellini roles: Oroveso before (in London), Rodolfo in Sonnambula and Giorgio in I Puritani, in concert. "Bel canto" is associated with him, Rossini, Donizetti and early Verdi. There's a certain formula in how the scenes are constructed: recitative ["spoken" music], cavatina [slow song], cabaletta [fast song, sometimes with chorus]. But "bel canto" implies the long line, the breath support, making sure the vibrato continues throughout the phrase. Shaping the arc of the entire phrase is important, not just some part of it. That drives me crazy, when people just go for the loud high note and then forget about the...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/03/27/playing-with-fire http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/03/27/playing-with-fire

Osvaldo Golijov's new opera, Ainadamar, which had its local première this past weekend, presents a remarkable paradox. There is almost nothing, from a theatrical and musical perspective, that is really new in this work, yet it coheres in an astonishingly original and moving way. Golijov is like a master cook; his stew contains many ingredients, but they come together organically. The drama stems from the execution of Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca in 1936 at the hand of the Fascists. Naturally, flamenco influences loom large in the score, but there are also Sephardic elements, and folk material echoing American Indian and African sources.

An essential aspect of the work is the sound design, which blends acoustic, amplified and recorded music. This is a challenge, and proved the only significant shortcoming of this exciting collaboration of Curtis and the Opera Company of Philadelphia. Given a choice, acoustic is always preferable to electronic sound; it may have been possible to present this opera with no amplification or recordings at all. As it was, the sound of this production was oddly unbalanced and distracting. Perhaps the electronics were not quite up to the demands.

David Henry Hwang's libretto is vital to this opera's impact, marrying passionate words to fiery music. Hwang nails the zeitgeist of 1930s Spain with language inspired by Lorca. The entire story is encapsulated by the stunning line, "Spain is a bull burning alive." The opera comes across as a cauldron of violence, sex, betrayal, politics and gender clashing — that last quality amplified by the use of a female singer for the role of Lorca.

Golijov manages his material with an innately theatrical se...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/03/06/kept-in-czech http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/03/06/kept-in-czech

Congratulations are in order: AVA undertook a difficult task in mounting Leos Janácek's lyrically anguished Kát'a Kabanová in the original Czech and came up aces. None of this sovereign yet idiosyncratic composer's operas seem to have been performed locally since the 1980s — this while the Opera Company of Philadelphia throws away precious resources on empty, derivative claptrap like its recent Cyrano. Kát'a swiftly and poignantly tells the story of a fatal but liberating love affair of a very religious young woman trapped in a loveless marriage and hemmed in by a monster mother-in-law and the oppressive mores of a joyless, provincial mercantile city (think Wilkes-Barre). Principal among the production's heroes is the Wilma's Blanka Zizka, making her debut as operatic director. Zizka successfully transposed the action from the 1860s ahead about 50 years and imbued the episodic piece with logic and flow; her singing actors were unusually dramatically convincing, save for two saddled with the burden of youth in playing elderly tyrants (though mezzo Cynthia Cook, singing accurately, gave it her best ramrod-postured shot). Allen G. Doak Jr.'s evocative set and lighting proved major assets. Luke Housner also performed heroically and expressively at the keyboard. The romantic leads — Colleen Daly's Kát'a and Bryan Hymel as her hapless lover, Boris — were particularly expressive. Daly seems in all ways a marvelous find, displaying real stage presence and timing in addition to an attractive, well-handled, clear and affecting soprano, with unusual richness in the bottom register. Hymel's potent tenor, now too big for the Warden Theater, shows greater refinement and ease by the year. Tenor Joseph Demarest coped capably with the weak husband's ungratifying role. As the "secondary" lovers, Elspeth Kincaid and Cody Austin proved ideal scenically; her pleasant sound grew harsh on top, and his impressive tenor needed an airier lyricism for Janácek's ravishing second-act finale. Nina Yoshida Nelsen lent Glasa a fine, mellow mezzo. A very worthwhile undertaking.

(d_s...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/02/21/miracle-drug http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/02/21/miracle-drug Gaetano Donizetti's 1832 Elixir of Love remains one of opera's miracles. You can set the simple comedy of a timid village guy (Nemorino) in pursuit of an ostensibly "too good for him" girl (Adina) anywhere and have it work. At Curtis Opera Studio, Ned Canty generally successfully transposed Elixir to a television studio, with the hero (Dominic Armstrong) as a grip and the heroine (Rinnat Moriah) as the soignee station manager. Canty and his team decked the black box with backstage props plus I Love Lucy and Mary Tyler Moore shows on some monitors — and subtitles on others, a great touch. Unclear what decade was targeted: Lucy and Mary Tyler are themselves icons of vastly different eras; hand-held cameras rubbed shoulders with a Polaroid; and costumes spanned the '50s to the '90s.

Choral parts, reduced to one voice per section, were handsomely sung by Sarah Shafer, Tammy Coil, Jason Coffey and Thomas Shivone. Danielle Orlando held everything together admirably at the keyboard, with cameo drum and trumpet for Belcore and Dulcamara's entrances. The edition cut the overture (understandably enough), transformed the opening chorus into a piano prelude and — for mysterious reasons &...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/02/14/same-old-song http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/02/14/same-old-song Before the curtains even open, the Philadelphia première of David DiChiera's new Cyrano has so much going for it that it would be hard not to like. We begin with a great classic of the stage that begs for an operatic treatment, and then add a lavish, old-fashioned production crammed with pretty costumes, big choruses and a sword fight or two.

And yet this work feels too weighted down by its own overly grand ambitions, always looking up at the glass ceiling separating it from top-tier operas. The utterly retro score gets help from Puccini, Debussy, Barber, Hanson and not a little John Williams, but DiChiera himself is hard to find. The odd decision by an American composer to utilize a French-language libretto is emblematic of an artist unable to find his own true voice.

Technically, there are problems that could easily be fixed by future tweaking. Pacing is uneven; the first act is over-stuffed and over-long, while the Act III denouement comes in sharp bursts. The tender and lyrical duets, which should be the emotional core of the work, are shapeless. They meander pleasantly until running out of energy, and then meander a bit more. Most of the characters are thinly drawn, including the crucial roles of Christian, and even Roxanne. The OCP debuts of AVA grads Stephen Costello and Evelyn Pollock in these parts was eagerly anticipated, but these wonderful young singers did not have enough material to invest in flesh and blood.

The vital to exception to this, and the reason to see this opera, is the title role of Cyrano. DiChiera's depiction of this proud poet warrior follows a grand dramatic arch. He enters the action in a flash of glory, and exits, a broken old man, in a final duel with death, which, of course, he loses. All along, we witness the gradual erosion of his spirit. What is more, Romanian baritone Marian Pop's finely inflected performance exuded star quality in a bold and confident way that we do not often enough get on local stages.

OCP is to be commended for having the sheer bravery to present as much new opera as it does in its sparse seasons. In the case of this Cyrano, it is simply not nearly new enough. <...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/02/07/bornagain-christian http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/02/07/bornagain-christian The talk of operatic chat rooms and message boards the world over, tenor Stephen Costello is really just a regular Northeast Philly guy. So he says. This year he made an acclaimed debut on the New York Met's opening night as Lucia di Lammermoor's ill-fated bridegroom, and later took over the star part of her no less ill-fated lover. He recently gave his first joint recital with his lovely soprano fiancée (and fellow AVA grad) Ailyn Pérez in London. Trained completely in Philadelphia, he makes his Opera Company debut this week as Christian, the sincere but inarticulate hunk in David DiChiera's new Cyrano. Next month comes Gounod's Romeo in Baltimore.

City Paper: When did singing become important? When you first encountered opera, did it "click" right away?

Stephen Costello: Growing up in Philadelphia — a few blocks from Franklin Mills Mall — I had always enjoyed music. I played trumpet for 12 years and had thought about making that my profession. ... It wasn't until senior year at George Washington High School on Bustleton Avenue that I wanted to try something new and auditioned for Lt. Joseph Cable in South Pacific. I loved singing onstage in front of an audience, so I decided to audition for the University of the Arts. My first opera was La Bohème at the Met, my second year as an undergrad. I didn't know what the story was, or even the music, but when I saw the production I fell in love with opera and decided that's what I want to do with my life. So walking onto the Met stage this September was a dream come true — especially having Maestro [James] Levine in the pit!

CP: When you're learning a new role, what is your process? Does Christian come easily to you?

SC: Learning a new role requires lots of time. I sit down, translate my score and then begin to work on the music. For Cyrano there isn't a recording, so I read the play and researched the work to get a feel for the characters. Christian is a cadet and falls in love with Roxane, but [in her presence] he really cannot say anything right. So to play that I just act completely shy and at a ...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/01/24/farm-fresh http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/01/24/farm-fresh Opera concerts, in which singers perform selections from different works absent costume or scenery, have become a mainstay of the Academy of Vocal Arts season. They are something of a guilty pleasure, as you get only chunks of opera and not complete dramas, but in the case of a first-flight school such as AVA, they are a useful way to assess the current crop of talent. As is almost always the case, the level proved to be consistently high, and even included some standouts at last Friday's evening of Verdi and Puccini.

Soprano Takesha Méshe Kizart is a fourth-year student now, and in the role of Amelia from Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, her poise and natural theatrical ease were impressive. Her voice is of a kind, with a focused tonality and exquisite control. In another Verdi selection, the second act of La forza del destino, the soprano was third-year student Angela Meade, who, in contrast, threw out a bigger sound with somewhat more abandon, but great joy. And in the final selection, from Puccini's Manon Lescaut, Joyce El-Khoury, now in her second year but already making a strong impression, could not quite overcome her own sweet nature and fully inhabit the vain character of Manon. These were three terrific singers, with Kizart the one best-prepared to step onto a larger stage.

The male singers showed off a similar range of abilities. Baritone Octavio Moreno brought fire and menace to the role of Renato in Un ballo. Michael Fabiano, as Manon's lover Des Grieux, possesses a classically ringing tenor, although he managed the remarkable feat of chewing up the scenery when none was there. The most impressive fella may have been baritone Jeremy Paul Milner, a second-year student, in the part of Geronte in Manon Lescaut. His voice is a true velvet fog (R.I.P., Mel), but very supple as well. Watch out for this one.

Music director Christofer Macatsoris, leading the fine AVA Opera Orchestra onstage, seemed to be having a ball, but his apparent ease of nature did not preclude his usual dynamically shaded and robustly imagined music-making.

(The finest performances of The Marriage of Figaro are those that bring us closer to the foibles of the human condition that Mozart reveals in his music. In this regard, the staging that the Curtis Opera Theatre presented this past weekend was a great success; exceptionally well-rounded and brilliantly conceived. Over the years, veteran Curtis director Chas Rader-Shieber has given us many smart productions where, on occasion, a sort of smirking cleverness peeks through, but here, he demonstrates an encompassing understanding of one of opera's greatest masterpieces, with the myriad characters brought vividly to life.

Rader-Shieber opens the action on a startlingly compressed stage, in the closet-like chamber of Figaro and Susanna ("the finest room in the palace," for Figaro), which makes the royal bedrooms, the set for the next two acts, explode with spaciousness by contrast. He clothes the characters in modern garb, a common practice, but the effect is not in the least anachronistic, quite the opposite: The class distinctions that fire the narrative of the drama seem completely familiar. There are many brilliant touches — including a moment in Act 3, following the wedding march, in which a camera flash-freezes the action, Fellini-like, so we can examine and contemplate the current state of each of the characters. As is usual with Rader-Shieber, the movement of the singers about the stage is both elegant and relevant to the drama.

The cast on opening night was uniformly strong, responding to the firm direction with natural and convincing actor-singing. A standout was certainly the regal soprano of Layla Claire, as the countess, as well as the agile, yet fulsome Cherubino of Tammy Coil. And there was real chemistry between the sweet Susanna of Rinnat Moriah and Evan Hughes as Figaro, who displayed a easy expressiveness both with his plangent voice and his lanky, theatrically elastic stage presence.

Mark Russell Smith seemed somewhat pedantic when he conducted the Curtis Symphony Orchestra earlier in the season, but in the pit he is extremely impressive; as with Rader-Shieber above the boards, he is well under the skin of this deceptivel...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/11/22/gingerbread-winner http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/11/22/gingerbread-winner

It seemed a bit odd that the overwhelming majority of the audience for the opening night of Hansel and Gretel was adult, and then some. It is probably a good guess that many were prepared to remain jaded against the charms of this most familiar fairy tale, but this completely delightful production, the first professional one in Philadelphia in more than 40 years, could melt a stone. This is a more remarkable accomplishment when considering that the composer, Englebert Humperdinck, opted to fluff up the much starker original version of the brothers Grimm tale with rather strident religiosity, resulting in a dramatically lightweight opera without a trace of irony. Not to mention that a German language opera that includes a plot line involving tossing children into an oven is more than a little creepy.

But the opera itself is irresistibly beautiful on the ear; folksy, flowing and superbly paced and structured. To call it Wagner-lite is no insult; this music is never ponderous or pretentious, although also never especially deep. The Opera Company of Philadelphia cast captured this sensibility with easy grace. In the title roles, Maureen McKay, as Gretel, and Curtis alum Lauren Curnow in the trouser part of Hansel were convincingly childlike without being cloying. The second-tier roles were well filled, including Jennifer Roderer's witch with a piercingly full-bodied cackle, and in the tiny part of Dew Fairy, an especially sweet turn by Kiera Duffy. Music director Corrado Rovaris found warm, billowing phrasing in the large score, even though this orchestra sounded a bit scruffier than we are used to hearing.

With all respect to the fine musicians, without a doubt, ...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/11/15/the-green-issue http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/11/15/the-green-issue Of the three great operas Mozart wrote with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, Cosí fan tutte has the most challenging characterizations. In Figaro and Don Giovanni, you can simply plug in good voices, and the operas make themselves. OK, that's a ridiculous exaggeration, but there is truth there, whereas the roles in Cosí demand greater subtleties of acting to fully flesh out. The trick is to capture both the exciting flush of young love and the confusion of emotional betrayal that ensues. In student productions, the former qualities are regularly conveyed with brio. It is the messy politics of love that present the challenge, as was the case in this AVA production.

A pair of happy young couples is introduced to the powers of jealousy, lust and infidelity by a cynical older couple. As with Shakespeare, the comedies of Mozart always have a dark side. In Cosí, as the drama proceeds, so does an accumulation of shadings of the characters. By the time we get to the heart of Act II, as one of the young women, Fiordiligi, sings the magnificent aria "Per Pieta," there is a full-blown emotional crisis. All of the AVA singers, with vibrant and beautiful voices, contributed to this sense, but did not render the depth and even anguish that lurks just beneath the jovial surface. That will come as these superb young voices mature.

AVA music director Christofer Macatsoris has long since demonstrated his ability to breathe life into Mozart scores, with boldly shaped phrasing and dramatic insight. The full production, directed by Damon Nestor Ploumis, seemed somewhat cramped and busy, but that is hard to avoid at the Lilliputian, if beloved, Helen Corning Warden Theater. Da Ponte gave Mozart a universal and timeless story, with a cast neatly divided into even sets of three pairs, but it was the genius of Mozart thatbrought all of the elements into a cohesive whole, and so it is not entirely inappropriate that the musical score was the star of this beautiful sounding production.

(p_burwasser@citypaper.net)

Mozart's Cosí fan tu...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/11/01/diary-of-a-madwoman http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/11/01/diary-of-a-madwoman If you ask dramatic mezzo Jennifer Roderer, opera and heavy metal are blood brothers. If you've every seen Ozzy take stage in a swirl of smoke to the tune of "O Fortuna," you know what she's talking about. This month Valley Girl Roderer makes her local debut with the Opera Company of Philadelphia in the legendary Maurice Sendak-designed production of Hansel and Gretel. It's not quite "Crazy Train," but this wonderful opera — the masterpiece by the original Engelbert Humperdinck (Richard Wagner's prize student, not the '60s crooner) — is musically gorgeous and enough fun to hook adults and kids alike. Plus Roderer plays a witch who eats children, and that is so metal.