'Chautauqua Opera Offers Two for the Price of One'
Published in the The Post-Journal, Jamestown, NY
July 29, 2010
By Robert W. Plyler
CHAUTAUQUA - Chautauqua Opera offers two operas for the price of one this week, and both of them are brilliant.
'Cavalleria Rusticana'' and ''I Pagliacci'' have been performed together for many years. Each is about 90 minutes in length, and both are dark tragedies, rooted in working-class life in Italy. It may be the only evening of opera to be offered in Norton Hall this year but the acting is thrilling and the singing is magnificent. The performance brought up feelings and ideas which many of us had forgotten we had.
The first opera, whose name in English is ''Rural Chivalry,'' was composed by Pietro Mascagni, to a libretto by G. Targioni-Tozetti and G. Menasci. It is a believable story. Santuzza and Turiddu are childhood friends. Santuzza has fallen in live with him, but Turiddu has become besotted with the more glamorous Lola.
Before the opera begins, Turiddu has gone away to serve in the army. In his absence, Lola has married the older, wealthy Alfio. Santuzza rushed to comfort her love and is now pregnant. As a result, she has been excommunicated from the church, which has made her an outcast in their small Sicilian village. Now Lola has tired of her older husband and has welcomed Turiddu's attentions again.
Will Santuzza suffer for everyone's sins? Or will she tell Alfio, knowing that he will kill her lover out of jealousy.
Leann Sandel Pantaleo was a vibrant and thrilling Santuzza. Her voice is dramatic and rich, and when she opened its doors, she knocked the socks off everyone to the back of the balcony. Hugh Smith was a striking and powerful Turiddu, and he also had a big voice which made the rafters ring.
Michael Chioldi was the only principal who sang in both operas. As Alfio, he left no wonder why everyone would fear his character's wrath. Stage director Jay Lesenger built the evening around the plot, trusting that his singers could thrill us even if they were facing away, lying on the floor, or wherever they needed to be, and his trust was completely rewarded.
Conductor Dean Williamson made the Chautauqua Opera Orchestra into a character in the drama, phrasing beautifully, always strong under the singers and beautifully expressive, without ever going over the top.
The company used an English translation of both operas by Edmund Tracey which made the emotions and events of both perfectly clear and at the same time, melded beautifully with the music.
The second opera is the story of a comic actor, who drives his small company around rural Italy, performing the same plays, over and over, for audiences who have no other entertainment in their lives.
The title means ''The Clowns,'' and it's based on the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, which is a style of acting which always utilizes similar plots and characters. The lead character is an older man who is fiercely jealous of his pretty young wife. She is driven by his jealousy into the arms of a handsome young lover.
Soon the plot of the play within the opera is matched by the plot of the opera itself.
The opera was composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo, who also wrote its libretto. Michael Cioldi was once again thrilling, this time as Tonio. He is a hunchedback clown who loves the boss's wife, and when she rejects him, he vows to made her sorry.
Canio is the protagonist, the husband who loves his wife and knows she doesn't love him. Tenor Alan Glassman made every heart weep, even though the music he was singing was made into a well-remembered breakfast cereal commercial which certainly made the dark feelings harder to feel. Vira Slywotsky was an attractive and sympathetic Nedda, the boss's wife, and she managed to thrill us with her voice and win us with her acting, at the same time.
Corey Rigg was a handsome and full-voiced Silvio, the young man who has won Nedda's heart.
It's been more than 30 years since either of these operas has graced the Chautauqua stage, and a very long time since such wonderful singing was done throughout a production, in Norton Hall.
The operas will be performed Friday and Monday evenings at 7:30 p.m. in Norton Hall.