San Antonio Opera, 'Il Trovatore'
If you've got it, flaunt it
June 13, 2009Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” may be the pinnacle of silly blood-and-thunder potboilers, but Oh! What tunes! If an opera company can assemble four superb singers and one stylish conductor, by all means go for it, and let the snooty high-minded critics be damned.
Happily, San Antonio Opera waited for the right moment to stage its first “Il Trovatore.” From its inception in 1996 as the scrappy little Pocket Opera -- which might have been more aptly named Empty-Pocket Opera -- the company has always managed to book singers who were above its own steadily rising station, but a credible “Il Trovatore” would have been beyond it even one year ago. In the production that opened on June 12 in Lila Cockrell Theater, San Antonio Opera has fielded not only its strongest cast yet, but one that often stirred memories of the glory decades, the 1940s to the 1960s, when the stars of the Met came to town for the San Antonio Symphony’s ambitious opera festivals.
Pride of place has to go to mezzo-soprano Eugenie Grunewald, probably the world’s reigning Azucena. (She may be remembered for her gripping Santuzza in “Cavalleria Rusticana” with the San Antonio Symphony and a commanding Fricka in “Die Walküre” in Austin.) Without resorting to scenery-chewing excess, Grunewald fully inhabited the role of the Gypsy motivated equally by vengeance for her mother’s death at the stake and by love for Manrico, the man she raised as her son. Apart from a few problems of dynamic control, Grunewald impressed with a voice of great power, color range and expressiveness. When she sang “Condotta ell'era in ceppi,” the Act II aria that reveals the opera’s backstory, she could make you believe it.
Soprano Kerri Marcinko, a product of the Houston Opera Studio about a decade ago, sang with opulent warmth, a gleaming high register, ample power and total security as Leonora, who loves Manrico and spurns the attentions of Count di Luna. The last time San Antonio heard singing of such sheer beauty was -- well, let’s see, that would be Marcinko’s Micaela in “Carmen,” in 2007.
The Manrico, Allan Gassman, is a true tenor, a species that’s been about as common on San Antonio Opera stages as Republicans at the Liberty Bar. He sounded a little pinched in the early going, but he opened up handsomely, displaying a virile, beefy middle tapering to a knife-edge top, and equally effective in lyrical and dramatic passages.
Baritone Lawrence Harris at times wanted a little more forcefulness to balance the honeyed warmth of his singing, but on the whole he made a strong Count di Luna.
Secondary roles were generally well sung, with young tenor Eric Schmidt showing particular promise as Ruiz.
Conductor Enrique Patrón de Rueda shaped the score beautifully, though a few tempos were excessively slow. There were a few coordination problems between the stage (mainly the chorus) and the orchestra, perhaps because some on stage had trouble seeing the conductor.
The set, designed by David Gano for New Orleans Opera, was an eye-filling mix-and-match ensemble of stone walls and stairways. Scene changes were the noisiest in my experience.
Samuel Mungo’s stage direction was an excellent argument in favor of concert opera. At its best, his staging was static and bereft of ideas, in the old-school, line-up-and-sing-to-the-footlights mode. When Mungo did have an idea, it was usually a bad one -- as when Azucena grabs a knife and a sword from Count di Luna’s soldiers and kills two or three of them, all the while demanding to be released from the chains that bind her. Granted, the story is silly, but it isn’t that silly.
“Il Trovatore” continues June 13 at 8 p.m. and June 14 at 2 p.m. in Cockrell Theater.
Mike
Greenberg
