San Antonio Opera's "L'elisir d'amore":
In top-notch staging, pathos rises
through the froth
January 26, 2008With its splendidly sung, convincingly acted, astutely directed and handsomely designed production of "L'elisir d'amore," which opened Friday night in Cockrell Theater, San Antonio Opera has taken yet another leap upward, this time into the top tier of regional-company standards.
Quibbles? Yes, but mostly at the margins. On the whole, this was a remarkably complete and well-balanced effort in a work that is more layered, and more difficult to pull off, than its fluffy reputation might suggest.
Gaetano Donizetti and his librettist, Felice Romani, wrote "L'elisir" on a two-week deadline for Milan's Teatro della Cannobiana in late April of 1832, supposedly as an emergency substitute for a scheduled premiere whose composer couldn't deliver.
Romani based his libretto closely on a French play by Eugène Scribe. A poor farmer (named Nemorino in the opera) buys a love potion -- actually, just cheap Bordeaux -- from an itinerant quack (Dulcamara) in the hope of wooing a beautiful land owner, Adina, who toys with his honest affections and the more libidinous attentions of a conceited recruiting sergeant (Belcore). Adina decides in Nemorino's favor, but the happy pairing is delayed by comedic complications.
Donizetti's contribution was not just to set the story to tuneful music, but also to deepen the dramatic shadows. The composer insisted that Romani create a text, not precedented in Scribe's play, for what would become the opera's most famous aria, Nemorino's heartbreaking and very difficult "Una furtiva lagrima." Though much of the music elsewhere is light and satirical, much is touching and tender. In particular, the music very deftly traces Adina's emotional trajectory.
The recruitment of Hollywood writer-director-producer Garry Marshall (creator of "Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley") to be stage director may have aroused suspicions of provincial celebrity-mongering, but he proved an excellent choice. He had fun with the material and put on a kinetic show with lots of nifty details, including sometimes delicious, sometimes needlessly distracting antics by a troupe of richly talented actor-acrobats. But Marshall was also fully attentive to the poignancy of the tale, and some of the most effective scenes were the ones focused tightly on human pathos. Ultimately this was a balanced, theatrically persuasive production.
The principals were all terrific singing actors. As Nemorino, Bruce Sledge sounded thin and mousy at first, but that turned out to be part of the act: When his character gained confidence from Dulcamara's elixir, Sledge's voice bloomed into a stirring, virile but still youthfully limpid lyric tenor. He brought wonderfully subtle shadings to "Una furtiva lagrima."
Soprano Elizabeth Caballero's Adina handled her elaborate fioriture with ease and accuracy, though her stamina seemed to flag just a bit near the end, and she could sound brassy or meltingly warm as the situation demanded. The powerful baritone Daniel Sutin made a strong impression as Belcore, especially when his steely voice took on an air of menace in an exchange with Nemorino.
As Dulcamara, bass Carlos Conde brought a refreshing contemporary perspective to the buffo tradition. Classically, the buffo bass commands the stage through the sheer size of his interpretation (to say nothing of his belly) and through the portrayal of complete self-absorption. Conde's Dulcamara was much more an ensemble player, blending vocally with the other principals and, in his body language, relating responsively to them. He was a little underpowered for this theater, but the results were nonetheless satisfying.
Francis Graffeo conducted stylishly, and the orchestra, drawn largely from members of the San Antonio Symphony, played with polish. The main musical weakness was the chorus, which wanted precision and strength.
The naturalistic set, built for New Orleans Opera and nicely lighted by Max Parrilla, placed the action in the courtyard of Adina's stone villa. An open arcade was anachronistically decorated with electric Christmas lights in one scene.
Mike
Greenberg
