Classical Philly

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca |Giuseppe Giacosa, Luigi Illica: Libretto

Verizon Hall, Philadelphia, May 12, 16 & 19, 2018
Jennifer Rowley (Tosca); Yusif Eyvazov (Mario): Ambrogio Maestri (Scarpia): Richard Bernstein (Angelotti); Ehtan Lee (Shepherd Boy)
Philadelphia Symphonic Choir, Joe Miller (director); Philadelphia Boys Choir Jeffrey R. Smith (director)
James Alexander (designer and stage director); Jon Weir (lighting design)

Baritone Ambrogio Maestri & Soprano Jennifer Rowley in Tosca (photo: Jessica Griffith

Philadelphia Symphonic Choir & Philadelphia Boys Choir in Tosca

Since Yannick  Nézet-Séguin became musical director of the Philadelphia Orchestra five years ago, he has tried to stage operas in Verizon Hall, by design not easy, since the orchestra is not in a pit, but onstage during performances. It works well enough with minimalist operas like “Bluebeard’s Castle” and “Electra” where the singers able to perform in front of the musicians, but more  problematic for the semi-staged production of Puccini’s Tosca, in a semi-staged production with the singers ensconced on a platform in the choir loft. Stage director David Alexander having to move the cast block the loft tiers, making the scene focus diffuse and somehow static and scrambled at once.

On the ps side the orchestra is in sight for the whole performance, a rare chance in grande opera to take in aspects of singers-conductor- orchestra dynamics. Further, Nézet-Séguin is able to vault the orchestra’s voluptuous sound, and otherwise igniting Puccini’s symphonics at the outset. Nezet-Seguin specializes in equalizing large scale classical pieces with famous stand alone passages familiar to concert hall audiences.  Tosca’s famous arias and dramatic passages are landed in context by the Philadelphians with precision and balance, relative to the entire score.

And handling the most dramatic ones, Soprano Jennifer Rowley as Tosca, and stepping in at the last minute for an ailing Sonya Yoncheva.  At the May 16  Rowley seemed detached and with little passion in Act I’s scenes with tenor Yusev Eyvazov, who played her artist lover, Mario. Since Flora Tosca is a singer herself, Rowley was a bit underpowered and detached portraying flirty jealousy. She made up for it in Act II when she tries to save him from being tortured by Baron Scarpia, starting with her ‘Vissi d’arte’ aria.

The drama begins as Cesare, bass Richard Bernstein  (making the most of his short dialogue passages) an escaped political prisoner is being hidden, in the church by a sousey Sacristan. In pursuit is Scarpia, wealthy chief of police, who suspects that Cavaradossi and Flora are withholding information.  Scarpia arrests Mario to force Tosca to talk about what she knows of Cesare whereabouts.

Baritone Ambrogio Maestri is the dastardly Scarpia, who later blackmails Tosca into being his lover.  She bends to his will as she hears Mario being tortured in his cell. Rowley and Ambrogio have great adversarial chemistry. Scarpia can certainly be portrayed with over the top villainy, but Maestri tamps that down as an actor and vocally to his characterizations, his baritone bringing subtlety and breadth.

Rowley has to be convincing leading him on until she can make a move to help Mario.  She unleashes  her soaring gold soprano, particularly commanding upper vocal range surfing over Puccini’s the orchestral crescendos. Yusev Eyvazov’s brings the house down in the famous “E lucevan le stelle” aria with thundering classic tenor drama.

Bass Kevin Burdette is used as comic relief as the Sacristan, swigging from a flask and flouncing about as he leads the choir to distracting the guards & protect Caesare.

Director James Alexander lets the Philadelphia Boys Choir scamper around the seats and rock out a bit for their sacred hymn “Te Deum.” The adult members of the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir are costumed as soldiers, police and townsfolk, but there is not much for them to do. Boy Soprano Ethan Lee appears as Shepard in Act II in perfect voice, both ethereal and earthy.

Nézet-Séguin was animated and even had a few new dramatic conductor moves to punctuate the crescendos. He looked like he was having a great time, going for every dimension of the score, despite production limitations. Among the standout soloists Jeffrey Khaner (flute), Hai- Ye Ni and Priscilla Lee, lead cellos, CJChang, viola,  David Kim, violin; Richard Woodhams, oboe and the breathtaking horn herald that launches Act III by the always masterful Jennifer Montone.

Nézet-Séguin is now conductor designate at the Metropolitan Opera and has already been putting his stamp on the Met Orchestra. Meanwhile, he is showing equal flair in the sustained clarity, detailing and character of Puccini with The Philadelphians. In fact, so assured, that even though Yannick had the score in front of him, he barely seemed to look at it.

Other issues swirled around the three performance of Tosca and the regular concert season closing concerts with piano superstar Helene Grimaud.  The performances were met with protesters objecting to the orchestra’s tour of Israel, because of current policies concerning and conflict with Palestinians.  The orchestra asserts that their tour is not political and their mission is one of musical diplomacy.  Stay tuned.

 

 

Stage

 

bass-baritone Daniel Noyola as the dastardly Don serenading his next conquest. (photo courtesy AVA)

Academy of Vocal Arts
Don Giovanni
By W.A.Mozart
Directed by Jeffrey Buchman
Conducted by Christofer Macatsoris
Philadelphia
AVA’s Helen Corning Warden Theater & area venues
Nov. 7-21
http://www.avaopera.org

The Academy of Vocal Arts’ mounts Mozart’s Don Giovanni every few years and it always seems to show them at their best. Their 2011 production, directed by the Tito Capobianco, and had the lusty Don Giovanni, in flagrante delicate all during the overture in just his breeches as he pretends to be Donna Anna’s fiancé Octavio. In their current production, director Jeffrey Buchman chose to be more discreet until later, but all of the lustiness was rendered by the orchestra alone in maestro Christofer Macatsoris vibrant interpretation conjures nothing less than glorious Mozart.
Macatsoris accents the darker themes right, the clamor of the first scene, an attempted rape and a death, seemed a bit too clamorously paced. When Donna Anna discovers the ruse and her father the Commendatore comes on the scene to challenge Giovanni to a duel. And Octavio, who resembles Giovanni, adding to the confusion as DG and Leporello steal away.
Meanwhile, Elvira, just jilted by Giovanni, chases him in anguish, but realizes what a philandering cur he is, after Leporello shows her the log of his many trysts (1003 in Spain alone). While nearby, Giovanni happens on the wedding of Zerlina and Masetto. He lures the party to his, and seduces the bride right under Maestro jealous nose.
The mob turns on him, but not before he sets off on a new round of dalliances and deceptions. He tries to win Elvira back by having Leporello stand in for him while she pines on her balcony. It’s all a ruse though to throw his pursuers off his scent. Things come to a head as he hides in the graveyard and the specter of the Commendatore gets his revenge on the doomed Giovanni.
The opera is a great barometer of AVA’s roster of singers in its vocal demands and to test their acting chops with equal parts drama and comedy. Soprano Vanessa Vasquez’s Donna Anna and her fiancé Octavio, sung by tenor Jonas Hacker have charming low-key chemistry in their scenes together, but it is in their solos toward the end that they triumph. Hacker nails the lengthy sung soliloquy in the final act. Two breakout performances by baritone Jorge Espino and mezzo-soprano Allegra Di Vita as Masetto and Zerlina. Espino conveying his jealousy with humorous gravitas. Di Vita so vocally powerful and a fine comic actress playing a gorgeous flirt.
Stellar performance by Anush Avetisyan as Elvira. She conveys every emotion as she goes from rage against Don Gio to giving in to his charms. Bass-baritones Andre Courville and Daniel Nayola as Leperello and Don Giovanni, sustain balance, and vocal clarity, with sardonic wit, in two of the most demanding vocal roles in all of opera. And the chilling finale of the stony presence out of the graveyard to exact Don Giovanni’s mortal damnation is sung with engulfing basso gravitas by Anthony Schneider.
Director Buchman opening scenes could use some streamlining, but he keeps the cast in motion throughout and uses the tight space at the Warden Theater to maximum effect. Peter Harrison’s set of modular grey panels frame Val Starr costume design of velvet doublets, plumed hats and breeches on the men and Versailles gowns on the women, seems in moments like an animated Renaissance painting.
Macatsoris’ and the AVA orchestra is a separate review and the intimate AVA Helen Corning Warden Theater a perfect venue to hear this orchestra’s dimension and detailing. Among the standout players’, the harpsichord continuo by Richard A Raub and first violin lines of Igor Szwec, essaying lustrous Mozart. Not to mention the voluptuous counterpoint lower strings by cellists Vivian Barton Dozor and Lynee Beiler.

Operaworld

The Academy of Vocal Arts Giargiari Bel Canto Competition  Oct. 4 in the Perelman Theater was particularly impressive because of the number of singers just starting their residency and performing with such skill and seasoned stage presence right away.

(photo: Paul Sirochman)

One of the best things about the competition is the camaraderie and the attitude among the singers that though it is an important award, it’s still just one performance, not a make or break proposition.

The pressure to success is on though with the panel of judges (and presumed scouts) this year were Jonathan Friend, artistic administrator at The Metropolitan Opera, Eve Queler, artistic director of Opera Orchestra New York and Charles Mackay, director of Santa Fe Opera.

The singers could not have had better accompaniment than to have Danielle Orlando, master vocal coach at the piano. There should be a whole separate article.

my disclaimer for this competition is – In my book they were all winners, even if there were off moments, at this caliber, it is really just being picky.

Here are a few notes on each performer in order of their appearance~ all are in their 1st year as AVA resident artists unless noted otherwise.

Michael Adams, baritone, stepped lustily into Come paride vezzoso  from Donizetti’s with rich tones and fine pacing, he hammed it up a bit to put over a showy character, but the radio broadcast confirmed this was indeed, a fine technical performance.

Galeano Salas, tenor, put too much pressure on himself with Che gelida Manina from Puccini’s La boheme. He seemed tentative and it was heard in his voice, and the control in the upper notes fell apart. He pulled in together in the back half, with attack and fine phrasing. His vocal crash did unfortunately, sound even worse over the radio.  (Remember that rule about one performance).

Julia Dawson, mezzo-soprano, had no trouble with the timbres of Meyerbee’s Nobles Seigneurs, Salut! (Les Huguenots) aria floating those waltzy French scales breezily showing her technical prowess and lustrous theatrical presence.

Jorge Espino, baritone, takes on the Ah! per sempre from Bellini’s I puritani in dramatically heavy baritone and very silky passagio, and an effective   reading, though his phrase finish articulation could improve.

Anush Avetisyan, soprano, melodramatically tackled Le come voi piccina io fossi from Puccini’s Le villi. Avetisyan has a powerful voice, but she performs with a studied manner that distracts from her artistry. Still, vocally, she was damn near flawless.

Alasdair Kent, tenor, played to humor, slinging those roulades and trills in Principe plu non sei…Si itrovaria to gluro from La Cenerentola. Kent dispatches Rossini with winning character flair. In fact, he could be the next Rossini tenor around town (the last was Juan Diego Flores, who trained at Curtis).

Andre Courville impressed with a mercury smooth bass-baritone singing Vi ravviso.. Tu non sai from Bellini’s La Sonnambula, his dramatic pacing brought the scene immediately to life.

Sydney Mancasola (3rd yr.), soprano sings C’en est donc fait…Salut a la France from Donizetti’s La fille du regiment and as elegant she is in her opera gown here , you have no trouble believing she is playing this rough and tumble and valiant Daughter of the Regiment. She sings this with such soul and as she has shown time and again, technical clarity.

Jared Bybee, baritone, sings Avant do quitter cos lieu from Gounod’s Faust with an ironic nobility and fine line technical skill.

Jessie Nguenang, singing Sombre foret from Rossini’s Guillaume Tell displays a shimmering lower soprano, technical clarity compelling interpretation.

Mackenzie Whitney, tenor, seemed timid, almost distracted at first, but none of that was reading in his voice, (confirmed during the WRTI broadcast) in an otherwise full- throated performance.

Chloe Moore, soprano (4th yr.) has both regal and earthy presence, not to mention vocal clarity with Berlioz’s Entre l’amour from Benvenito Cellini.  Moore only has to watch some too sharp spikes riding those topnotes.

Armando Pina, baritone, chose Leoncavallo’s Il Paggliaci, not the famous tragic aria, but this was perhaps overly coy, but he shows incredible presence and has silky baritone-tenor passagio, but he should watch the vibrato.

Shelley Jackson, soprano (2nd yr.) sang Je dis que rien ne m’epouvante from Carmen so completely, so enticingly, that you just make a mental note that when she does it at the Met you will be there.

Patrick Guietti, bass (3rd yr.), also gave a fully realized performance of Simon Boccanegra, triumphantly it turns out, and it seemed like he would definitely put his vocal stamp on this role. One thinks of Domingo and other greats that his name will be added through this part. His voice never bottoms out or hits evaporation- his is an oceanic basso.

Marina Costa-Jackson, soprano (2nd yr.), vocally luminous in her reading of In quelle trine morbide from Puccini’s Manon Lescat. (the qualities onstage were equally radiant on the radio as that audience registered)

Diego Silva, tenor (3rd yr.), sang Donizetti’s Angelo casto e bel from Il duca d Alba, which such lyrical power and subtle characterization that the soul in this song just soared.

~Diego Silva won the 1st prize judges award. Sydney Mancasola and Shelley Jackson tied for second place. Patrick Guietti took the audience award.  

~Audience winners based on the WRTI Broadcast- Sydney Mancasola (1st place) Marina Costa-Jackson (2nd); Mackenzie Whitney (3rd)

Opera

  Academy of Vocal Arts’ production of L’elisir d’amore is set in 1945 Italy and features Peter Harrison’s very warm set with angled rows of books in dark wood frames. The props a trove of period items such as a black lacquer manual typewriter, a period hi-fi. All perfect backdrops for Val Starr’s costumes with the men decked out in film noir suits and the women in a colorful array of tight sweaters, wraparound skirts and liberation day pumps. A poster of Il Duce hangs for the moment straight up on the back wall.

Director Nic Muni takes a risk updating Elisir to such a historically pivotal time as the end of WWII, but it works as a Donizetti farce and a grand melodramatic work it is. The war weary Italians get together in the neutral zone of the library to indulge in various post-war activities. Enter Adina, the head librarian, who is smoking even before she lights a cigarette. She distracts with a reading of the tale of Isolde’s magic love potion and presto, Dr. Dulcamara is hustling such a potion, which is actually just wine and is set upon by the hapless Nemorino, a custodian at the library, who is besotted by Adina.

Nemorino buys some of the potion, gets drunk and blows it playing hard to get with Adina. Meanwhile, the very ungallant Belcore, sergeant in the Axis army, is a handsome fascist who starts conscripting the men and hitting on the women, but is stopped dead in his tracks by Adina. The misunderstanding with Nemorino causes her to accept Belcore’s proposal, but she soon starts to understand the depth of Nemorino’s true love when he enlists in the army just to have the funds to buy more of the potion that would make her fall for him.

Both Muni and conductor Christofer Macatsoris go past the contrivances of the plot and themes of love lost, lust, betrayal, jealousy are all intoxicatingly freshly uncorked in this Elisir. Rossini-esque crispness in the progressions and flowing orchestral mis-en-scenes are faced off by lots of sonic singing, particularly by the chorus that was outsized for the room, but otherwise glorious in its textures.

Soprano Sydney Mancasola, giving Rita Hayworth a run for her money with smoldering auburn hair tumbling over her gorgeous eyes, just vocally thrilling and subtly interpretive. Musa Ngqungwana’s bass just kept giving comedically and with a lot of heart as the bombastic Doctor.

As the unrelenting cad Belcore, Wes Mason, is a silky baritone. Chrystal E. Williams was that blond bob and polka skirt girl from town that everybody loves, and her mezzo was a silvery stratosphere and charming. But it was Luigi Boccia’s hapless Nemorino, who just breaks out in this role as the drunken suitor. When he sings the famous “Una furtiva largima” his bittersweet renunciation of Adina that just melted everybody’s heart and brought the house down. Macatsoris’ gorgeous orchestration with Sophie Bruno’s haunting harp and Geoffrey Deemer’s fine oboe line at the forefront.

Opera in Philly

OCP sets Mozart’s Seraglio in 20s era Istanbul


Reiter & Adam no desert storm in Seraglio

Mozart rarities in Philly this month with a concert version of Oberto by AVA and a flapper-era production of The Abduction of the Seraglio by Opera Company of Philadelphia and Teatro Comunale of Treviso. OCP’s director Robert Driver sets it in the 20s Istanbul, by way of silent film as interactive backdrops. Konstanze and Blonde, the lead women, using their wiles as foreign spies instead of as mere sex objects.

“I wanted to bring a fresh new look to Mozart’s comic masterpiece which launched the German comic opera in Vienna in the 1780s. my team of creative colleagues – costume and scenic designer Guia Buzzi, projection effects designer Lorenzo Curone, we decided to draw on the world of early Hollywood cinema in order to tell our romantic, swashbuckling, rescue story.“ Driver explains.

Elizabeth Reiter, 24, plays the scheming Blonde with her silvery soprano, has already landed major roles with OCP, plays her first buffo role. Cosmin, the overlord (with the hilarious Danish bass Per Bach Nissen) tries to seduce Blonde and not only does she file her nails on his ego, she canoodles all the more with Pedrillo.

Reiter talked about the challenges and the funsies of playing the part at OCP studios this week. “Vocally, it has its challenges, but the character of Blonde helps. Mozart was still finding out how to write for the voice, so this role goes very high and when she’s imitating Cosmin, it goes very low. The staging and this interpretation of the character lends itself very well to the music. And you see hints of what is to come with Figaro and Giovanni.”

Even though Blonde is comic relief, she gets to play some steamy scenes with her lover Pedrillo, played by Polish tenor Krystian Adam. “Yes, we get to do it in front of three thousand people, just part of the job. It’s tricky but this mixes serious opera and comedy. Blonde is a little one-dimension, so we tried to find more in the comedy to contrast.

The lovers contrast the more somber star crossed affair between Konstanze, played by 2012 Met finalist Elizabeth Zharoff, (a soprano, who like Reiter, studied at the Curtis Institute) opposite Spanish tenor Antonio Lozano, as Belmonte.

“When I see Elizabeth backstage, and she’s singing about these dark themes, it’s like we’re in two different operas.” Reiter said. “Blonde is a little one-dimension, so we tried to find more in the comedy to contrast. the story gets of ‘damsels in distress’ and this production we’re military spies who have been captured it gives us power and having the upper hand. Better than being the tragic heroine,” Reiter said. “With Robert’s productions he can bring something different to it without compromising the music. I love the 20s style and silent film era, it was rather perfect- especially with the movie the Artist coming out now.”

Reiter got raves last year in a new chamber opera of Phaedre last year, is very committed to new opera by contemporary composers. “So many young composers were at Curtis and it was very exciting hearing where opera can go. I think also there is something to be said about singing new music and to put our stamp on more historical music,” she said. For now she is stuck in the past for a while. After Philly, Reiter heads for Frankfurt, Germany where she will appear in The Magic Flute, then Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

The Abduction from the Seraglio
Academy of Music, Philadelphia
Through Feb. 26 ~
http://www.operaphila.org

Opera

Les Contes d’HoffmannAcademy of Vocal Arts, Philadelphia
Nov. 15

Clocking in at almost four hours and basically, three separate one-act operas,Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann may seem outsized for the Academy of Vocal Arts’ intimate Helen Corning Warden Theater. Actually, AVA proved they were more than up to the challenge in realizing the musical scope of the latest version by Offenbach musicologist Michael Kaye. The cast of the Nov. 15 performance showed the depth of the talented pool of singers and digs in past the buffo tenor role and divas-to-die-for divertissements.

Kaye’s added scenes, clarified by recently discovered Offenbach notes, move the opera closer to the composer’s artistic intentions. Conductor Christopher Macatsoris illuminates the score with reduced instrumentation, but otherwise there is nothing scaled musically, and certainly not vocally. AVA Orchestra marks this with a pulsing tempi and details the unique expansiveness of the lyrical French line. Stage director David Gately also keeps the squirrelly plots crisply moving forward (no built-in applause beats, for instance).

Those woeful tales of the poet Hoffmann are conjured as he sulks and pines for Stella, an opera singer, in a tavern. The muse, disguised as Nicklausse, escorts him through his three tales of love lost: first, he is humiliated over loving a perfect, mechanical woman; then, smitten with a consumptive singer, who must choose between his love or her music; and finally, entranced by the courtesan who steals his soul in a mirror (don’t ask).

Maria Aleida is hilarious as Olympia, the automaton ballerina, her arms flailing around in “danger Will Robinson” fashion at Hoffmann’s touch and her singing those F-flat scales bone-chilling. Alexandra Maximova, in the brothel scenes that contain most of the new music, makes the most of the comparatively underwritten courtesan with lusty soprano trills to ensnare Hoffmann.

Chloé Moore’s warmth as Antonia, between coughs, and icy as Stella, is skilled in classic divadom. Margaret Mezzacappa‘s luminous mezzo floats in behind the portrait of Antonia’s dead mother, to great effect. Moore is very well paired by Patrick Guetti, whose powerful unfussy basso is so well folded into his performance as Antonia’s protective, hapless father.

Other than the dark dexterity of his voice, bass Scott Conner is operatic noir with each of his four villains, most drolly impressive as Le docteur Miracle, popping up in unexpected places. Also standout supporting tenors Jeffrey Halili, playing outrageous stereotypes for his comic voice tricks in the servant roles, and John Viscardi, the zany and slightly creepy dollmaker.

In the title role, William Davenport, 2011 Bel Canto Competition winner, is convincing both vocally and as an actor. Davenport has a big voice with a powerful, very warm center, even with some shakiness around the technical edges. Most important, he didn’t rely solely on his towering tenor to carry him through this very demanding role. The sketchier role of his muse, who reacts to the action, mezzo Crystal E. Williams, has soaring control, not to mention superb French diction and beautiful stage presence.

Gately and Macatsoris together have orchestrated a uniformly strong cast for this Hoffmann, a chorus with muscle in their brief appearances and breakthrough roles from Williams, Guetti and Davenport

Opera

Scott Connor wrestles with Commendatore in Don Gio

Academy of Vocal Arts’s lusty production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni finishes up it area run today. Tito Capobianco returned  to direct, but had to leave the production when his wife, Elena, passed away. Justin Johnson, the assistant director, took over and equal credit should go to both for the finished production. 

Capobianco’s signatures are immediately apparent in the pulse of the scenes, the naturalness of the characters and, the ensemble quality of the cast. Conductor Christopher Macatsoris and AVA orchestra just hurl us into the opera’s musical grandeur, drama and wit

The dizzying narrative of love, lust and all the ironies in between unfolds from the initial darkness of the overture that gives way to thrilling Mozartian effervescence. It underscores the lusty scene onstage as Don Giovanni in a mask breaks in Donna Anna’s boudoir, peals off his coat of arms and molests her on a red velvet divan where she sleeps. Anna either thinks it is her husband to be, or pretends to be dreaming. Scott Connor just owns Don Gio’s lustful swagger and as offensive as that can be to contemporary audiences, his basso is big, assured and as sublimely lithe as Mozart’s music.

He toys with the emotions and bodies of all of the townswomen as he bests the men who try to stop him, in the bedroom and the town square. Bass-baritone Musa Ngqungwana as Leporello, DG’s manservant, is vocally commanding in a breakout role, attending to broad comedy and scabrous asides.

The women wrestling with Don convey well their conflicted passion, for lust and revenge. Soprano Alexandra Maximova is Donna Anna, his first conquest, doesn‘t over-sing the ariatic laments when she finds out he has lanced her father. In contrast, soprano Chloe Moore is a belty soprano playing Elvira, the cuckolded wife, for its humiliating comedy. Chrystal E. Williams is the new bride Zerlina, who is seduced by the Don on her wedding day and knows how to flirt heavily with a light mezzo.

Other outstanding performances are Zachary Nelson, bass-baritone, as the hapless husband and tenor Luigi Boccia saving all of his muscle as Ottavio, for the third act floating those unending vocal lines. The final tableaux of Don Giovanni being visited hell by that specter in armor was rendered fog, red fabric among the bacchanalian frescos and one icy basso hurling him to hell.

Opera

Cunning Little Vixen

Perelman Theater, March 20

 
The Cunning Little Vixen  Leoš Janácek’s 1924 opera, is the fourth chamber opera collaboration by Curtis Opera Theatre and Opera Company of Philadelphia and from every angle Vixen has proved the most successful.  Among other things, it was very cunning of them to bring in Amy Smith, one of the artistic director’s of Headlong Dance Theater, to choreograph and completely animated the story. Janácek’s magic realism is for adults and children — playful animal characters but the gritty underbelly of eat or be eaten, fox or be outfoxed world.

The score is packed with orchestral intrigue and magic — character instrumentations and shimmering earthiness. The two-tier set by Laura Jellinek is a curious domicile for humans and  the hens, foxes, insects, dogs, bunnies and a few transpecies creatures appear and vanish in recesses that peek at the forest outside.

Brandon Cedel plays the Forester who traps the animals for food, clothing or pets. He traps the young vixen, but she soon figures a way out.  Elizabeth Reiter, in a rust colored sun dress is a mature Vixen who not only rebels against her own captivity, she rallies the hens to free themselves from egg-laying bondage.

The vixen eventually escapes from being tied up and is courted by the Fox, played by mezzo soprano Kisten MacKinnon, who comes on strong, but has no nefarious agenda other than wanting to make a happy life with the Vixen. Forest creatures abound with a fantasia of vocal sounds by Janacek.

The musical and choral interludes featured 30 singers and a dance cast that included such Philly modern dance troubadours Kate-Watson Wallace, Nichole Canuso and John Luna.

The hen chorus brings operatic hysterics and the spirited Pennsylvania Girlschoir playing vixen’s brood charm vocally as they scurry everywhere. The wild kingdom wedding dance with all of the creatures breaking into the electric slide is too fab.

Janácek’s vocal lines are so fluid that it just sweeps you into the story. At the center are the crafted and flinty performances by Cedel and Reiter. Reiter has such an inventive soprano range, able to surprise ala the character’s wild heart. Great vocal chemistry with Kristen MacKinnon who plays her mate. Cedel kept his Hunter the deepest roundness bass-baritone.

Emma Griffin’s stage director keeps everything visually interesting, yet breezy enough not to detract from the music. The Curtis Orchestra, conducted by Corrado Rovaris, played with such passion and pristine detailing, like they were celebrating Vixen’s musical uniqueness. Peter and the Wolf, eat your heart out.

World of Music

Giovanni Boccaccio’s notorious Decameron inspired everyone from Shakespeare to Pablo Pasolini. The sacred and profane stories of plague-ridden 14th century Florence Italy are full of disease, sex, murder, transfiguration, religious tyranny, moral decay and heartbreak – all the ingredients for opera. Under the direction of Karen Salliant, Philadelphia’s International Opera Theater and their counterpart company in Italy have turned Boccaccio’s text into a raucous opera of dramatic and comedic grandeur.

Since Boccaccio’s text had a different narrator for each novella, the opera has appropriately utilized the improbable assemblage of seven Philadelphia-based composers, working on a different Decameron story. Instead of musical chaos, the various musical voices works well. The composers – Efrain Amaya, Michael Djupstrom, Daniel Shapiro, Adam Silverman, Tonoy Solitro, Thomas Whitman and Ya-Jhu Yang- build the broad musical template that is cohesive. Credit the fine libretto, written by Salliant and Tommaso Sabbitini, who maintain muscled interaction to the music, alternating song cycles in Italian and English.

Whitman’s front scenes introduce Calandrino, the artist who spins fantasies that helps him escape the grim reality of the plague. Baritone Bernard Bygott is a feverishly inspired troubadour, his physical comedy full of mischief but doesn’t steal from his earnest vocal performance. As Italian folk dances and tarantella beats swirl around, he reads from his shredded garments as he sings about the horrors of the plague with gallows humor and clinical crassness. The other lead cast member plays noble and ignoble characters over the nine stories depicted.

Among the many highlights – Yasko Fuiji who is transcendent in the Ghismunda and The Heart of Guiscardo – the stunner that ends Act I. The story is about an heiress in love with a household servant who is murdered by her father. She holds his heart in her hand as Amaya’s music blooms with the most grotesque beauty. Fuiji’s sings this horrific scene with such power and truth. Kathryn Krasovec, singing the mezzo roles, is most sumptuous as Madre Usimbalda, lamenting the loss of her children. The tenor Son Jae Yeon, can play priest, clown and villain, with equal ease and is vocally thrilling in all of them. But the baritone Christopher Grundy, stepping in just days before the premiere, in the lover roles, sometimes with lengthy soliloquy, who gives no less than a heroic performance.

Salliant, who also directed, didn’t have much to work with at the modest black box upstairs at the Prince Music Theater, but she compensates by keeping the action focused on the performances and music. Great costuming of different textures (medieval headdress; wedding gowns, viscount capes and celestial tunics) play off an ocean of tulle, which morphs into clouds, sickbeds and ethereal set pieces at any moment.

Musical director Gianmaria Griglio achieved fine detailing from the International Opera Theater Chamber Orchestra, which sounded twice the size at any given moment. Befitting its source material, Decameron, the opera, deserves a long artistic life.

OperaWorld

Flu season is over, but there are lingering ariatic coughs among the opera heroines onstage this week. At the AVA, Mimi, Parisian paramour, is wasting away for her art in Puccini‘s la Boheme and downtown at the OCP, Violetta, la Traviata’s cortesan, is not going to let a little consumption ruin her chances with the mens.

OCP’s Robert Driver said he has mounted many productions of doomed Violetta, but there is always something new to discover in Verdi’s music. “There are a lot of operas I don’t need to do anymore, but I always love traviatta because the story is so compelling. For Verdi, this is the most personal work. Because he was quote living in sin with Giuseppina Strepponi and society didn’t accept her. His father in law from his first marriage, whom he was very close, wrote him a very severe letter about this relationship. It weighed on him and Traviata was a release for him in writing this incredibly poignant story.”

Even though Robert admits to loving many previous casts of the opera, he thinks this one is the strongest he’s directed. “For me, this is the cast. Soprano Leah Partridge sings Violetta and “is just ideal. It doesn’t hurt that she brings the coy gentility of an Atlanta girl” Robert then takes a moment to fantasize about a Traviata set in Atlanta.

British baritone Mark Stone, left on the Academy stage last year in his skivvies in Gianni Schicci plays Germont. “Mark is such a superb actor. And he brings so much thought to this part. The dynamics of the act between Violetta and the father is just the guts of the opera. He finds the perfect dramatic balance. Driver scouted Charles Castronovo, who plays Alfredo, from his first professional role in Don Giovanni in Boston 12 years ago.