Assessment: Calgary Opera in superb type because it opens season with basic

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Mozart’s effervescent, fun-filled The Marriage of Figaro is the opening opera for Calgary Opera’s 51st season. With enticing interval units and costumes, wit and cleverness within the stage route, the manufacturing is certain to please.

With half a century of expertise behind it, the corporate is now a mature group, and could be relied upon to ship wise, fascinating productions of main works. This manufacturing is definitely that: the cautious preparation and thought behind the manufacturing is obvious all over the place from the staging to the selection of singers and to the instrumental accompaniment. Operatically talking, that is the total meal deal.

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Comedian opera is notoriously exhausting to convey off, particularly interval works. The comedian sensibility of the previous could be troublesome to seize when it comes to which a contemporary viewers will reply. Luckily, on this manufacturing, these concerned have trusted Mozart’s dramatic instincts and the power of the story to get via to a listener with out the introduction of extraneous components.

The comedy of human relationships, of affection, its playfulness, its errors, its heartbreak, are all to the fore, conveyed by a superb integration of music and stage motion. Mozart’s means to create musical strains which can be each lovely and specific the rapid scenario on stage is central right here and offers life to the comedy. The staging by no means will get in the way in which of the expression of emotion and feeling as expressed via the music.

Conductor Jonathan Bandini and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra present the musical throughline. With brisk, however not over-brisk, tempos and a certain sense of tips on how to accompany the singers, the orchestra offers an invisible, however palpable, assist to the singers. The singers are by no means coated and are in a position to create the numerous fun-filled moments through which the opera abounds with out forcing their voices. Bandini, as earlier than, has a certain sense of how this music goes, and the orchestra impressively effectively.

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As performances of this opera go, this manufacturing tilts barely towards what is usually referred to as “interval type.” The units are easy, virtually minimalistic, and comply with the spirit of units of the 18th century. Most of the vocal strains are barely embellished, and the singers keep away from the heroic method of grand opera, staying inside the vocal proportions of early opera. All through the efficiency, there’s a delicacy and refinement that fits the world of Mozart and the 18th-century musical sensibility.

The forged for this opera is giant, but when there may be one main position it’s in all probability that of Susanna, for it’s via her psychological prism that a lot of the motion takes place. Lucia Cesaroni brilliantly portrayed the cleverness and playful components of her position, together with her clear soprano carrying the highest line within the ensembles with authority. Heard in lots of ensembles all through the opera, she had her star flip within the final act with the well-known aria “Deh vieni, non tardar” through which she baits the unsuspecting Figaro. This was an exceptionally superb efficiency of this well-known aria, the nocturnal aspect of the music effectively characterised within the context of the underlying humour.

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The manufacturing’s Figaro is Marcell Bakonyi, making his debut with the corporate. Vocally strong, he was effectively suited to the position, as profitable within the appearing aspect as in his singing. Bodily, his persona properly contrasted with the extra aristocratic Depend Almaviva. His acquainted first-act aria was the hit it wanted to be, and he was wonderful within the mixing of cleverness and naiveté that’s central to his character.

The 2 noble figures, the rely and the countess are performed by Phillip Addis and Talise Trevigne, each acquainted to Calgary audiences from earlier appearances with the corporate. Skilled in all issues operatic, they offered the aristocratic aspect round which the opera relies. Each have moments within the third act the place they’ve an opportunity to shine, Addis histrionic and highly effective because the enraged rely, and Trevigne receiving the most important applause of the night time for her outstanding efficiency of “Dove sono.”

Carolyn Sproule performs Cherubino, the adolescent boy who’s inconveniently all over the place. He (she) will get two of probably the most acquainted arias within the opera, they usually had been sung with confidence, superb vocal method, and distinctive character.

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Matthew Trevino and Justine Ledoux sang the roles of Dr. Bartolo and Marcellina, injecting the wanted comedy to their components, in addition to offering superb singing. This was particularly the case with Trevino’s “La Vendetta” within the first act, expertly sung and with a first-class Italianate voice and magnificence. Nicole Leung and Barbarina and Branden Olsen rounded out the case because the teenage Barbarina and the gardener Antonio, each making sturdy appearances, the roles effectively characterised. Leung’s cameo aria within the remaining act had all of the allure this scene requires, a particular second within the opera.

That is an ensemble-based opera, with many interactions between the varied mixtures of characters. By these interactions one is ready to sense the overarching narrator of the unique Beaumarchais play and Da Ponte as librettist. In 18th-century language, the opera makes a degree that Connie Francis made in her well-known pop track from my youth: All people is anyone’s idiot. On this lies the cosmic comedy of what it means to be human, and that love is a harmful recreation – factors central to opera of this time. These elementary truths, advised in comedy and wreathed in Mozart’s beautiful music, are excellently portrayed on this superb, worthwhile manufacturing.

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