OPERA
Bel Canto Babes Taking First Steps
Will Crutchfi eld’s Teatro Nuovo brings Bellini, Rossini to NYC
BY ELI JACOBSON
Will Crutchfi eld’s Teatro
Nuovo company
celebrated its second
season in existence
by venturing out of Purchase and
into Manhattan this summer for
two concert performances at the
Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln
Center. Bellini’s early essay in
high Romanticism, “La Straniera”
(1829), was performed on July 17
and Rossini’s opera semiseria “La
Gazza Ladra” (1817) went onstage
on July 18.
Crutchfi eld’s project is in part
a bel canto boot camp — a postgraduate
training course for young
musicians and singers devoted to
learning through coaching sessions
and masterclasses. The other
part is actually performing the
works and bringing them to life
with an informed historical sensibility
from critical edition scores.
Period practice necessitates an orchestra
of historical instruments
led not by a conductor but by the
fortepiano player (or “maestro al
cembalo”) and fi rst violin (“primo
violino”) working in tandem as was
done in the early 19th century.
The Teatro Nuovo musicians are
younger and less polished than the
modern instrument Orchestra of
St. Luke’s at Caramoor, and there
were no international opera stars
onstage like Ewa Podles, Sumi Jo,
Angela Meade, or Michael Spyres.
Some of the artists seemed like
well-drilled conservatory students
while others revealed vocal mastery
evidenced by fast-rising careers
in regional theaters.
Bellini’s “La Straniera” (“The Foreign
Woman”) concerns an exiled
queen of France, Alaide, who lives
in seclusion always veiled. Alaide
inspires fear in the populace but fatally
attracts the young nobleman
Arturo. Felice Romani’s libretto
leaves the audience as much in the
dark as the hapless and hysterical
hero, with most of the crucial plot
incidents happening before the
story begins or offstage. Bellini’s
music never reaches the melodic
heights of his breakthrough opera,
Christine Lyons and Steven LaBrie in Teatro Nuovo’s recent concert performance of Bellini’s “La Straniera”
at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
“Il Pirata,” or the later “Norma” or
“I Puritani” — most notably there
is a lack of stunning arias. “La
Straniera” is usually dusted off for
a bel canto prima donna looking to
expand her Bellinian credentials
— Montserrat Caballé performed
it with the American Opera Society
in the late 1960s. I heard a
radiant young Renée Fleming on
the brink of stardom sing it with
Opera Orchestra of New York back
in 1993. But the fustian plot and
earthbound melodies inevitably
send “La Straniera” back into the
dusty back drawer from whence it
came.
Christine Lyons, last year’s wonderful
alternate Amenaide in “Tancredi,”
is a natural communicator
with an individual soprano sound
— a lush timbre overlaid with
shimmering silvery overtones. A
fast but even vibrato runs through
her voice like a current of electricity.
Lyons started off tentatively, as
if the role of Alaide were an evening
dress that didn’t quite fi t or she felt
she couldn’t carry off. Her tone
sounded bottled up in the throat
and high notes could be pushed.
Gradually, Lyons relaxed and her
lovely qualities started to shine
through. But I couldn’t help remembering
the vocal poise and authority
the young Fleming brought
to the role.
As Alaide’s obsessive would-be
STEVEN PISANO
suitor — a psychotic hothead too
idiotic to live even by Italian tenor
standards — Derrek Stark revealed
a plangent, well-balanced lyric
tenor. Out gay barihunk Steven
LaBrie brought a handsome baritone
and equally handsome stage
fi gure to the heroine’s brother, Valdeburgo.
LaBrie showed a disturbing
tendency toward overdarkening
his tone, singing everything
loudly and with one color typical
of young baritones who aspire to
dramatic Verdi repertory. I wanted
more light and dark shading in
the vocal palette and brighter vowels.
LaBrie’s stage manner shows
a tendency to fall into poses that
needs to be watched. Young lyric
soprano Alina Tamborini brought
a vulnerable youthful timbre to the
role of Arturo’s jilted fi ancée Isoletta
but the vocal writing indicates a
darker-toned lyric mezzo-soprano.
Much of the music lay too low for
her comfort.
Crutchfi eld at the fortepiano collaborating
with Jakob Lehmann at
the fi rst violin managed to generate
some dramatic tension and forward
moving excitement from Bellini’s
ambitious but uneven score.
“La Gazza Ladra” (“The Thieving
Magpie”) is a fraught melodrama
about a servant girl, Ninetta,
who is condemned to death
for stealing the family silver — a
larceny in fact committed by the
titular avian felon. Ninetta’s day
from hell is further complicated
by an army-deserter father on the
lam and a lecherous mayor on the
#MeToo make. Luckily, the peasant
boy Pippo discovers the bird’s
hidden nest of loot just before the
noose tightens around Ninetta’s
neck. She is restored to her lover
Giannetto while her father gets a
reprieve.
The drama veers unexpectedly
from rustic comedy to impending
tragedy and back. It is sped along
by a sparkling Rossini score starting
with a bravura overture followed
by bouncy arias, dazzling
duets, and showstopper ensembles
one after another. Rossini’s level
of musical inspiration is consistently
high and his invention is
awe-inspiring. The casting here
leaned toward the earnest but callow
competence of the conservatory
student but no one put a foot
wrong.
As Ninetta, Alisa Jordheim’s
crisp bright soprano suggested
spunk as well as girlish fragility,
her coloratura singing neat and
technically precise. The standout
in the ensemble was mezzo-soprano
Hannah Ludwig in the trouser
role of Pippo — hers is a robust and
colorful voice that commands the
music and stage. Her duet with Ninetta
in the last act was the highlight
of the evening, with soprano
and mezzo blending ornamented
vocal lines in thirds.
Rachelle Jonck led from the
fortepiano while Lehmann on violin
was her cohort in Rossinian
revelry. I did start to miss a conductor
here — the brilliant overture
seemed more of a genial amble
rather than the balletic tour de
force achieved by great maestros
from Toscanini onwards. The Teatro
Nuovo Orchestra displayed
greater ensemble precision and improved
control over intonation and
dynamics from their uneven showing
in the summer of 2018.
Teatro Nuovo already has built
on its inaugural season and brings
bright hopes for the future in a city
now deprived of concert opera.
September 26 - October 9 38 , 2019 | GayCityNews.com
/GayCityNews.com