SF Opera Opening Night

Verdi's Il Trovatore was the first performance of Nicola Luisoiti as Music Director, the Italian guy hired to restore luster of the Italian operas. We got a better glimpse of him during the Opera in the Park, and he seems quite happy to be here. In the park, he faced the audience for the National Anthem, and he's giving Jim Carrey a run for his money: he has a different facial expression for each bar of music. Here's a fundraising idea for the opera: a Luisoti Face-a-day desk calendar. There's no denying that it worked on Friday night, he conjured the proper robust support for the singers, while giving them the freedom to shine.

And shine they did. Il Trovatore gives up on any pretense of a storyline to take seriously to piece together some most wonderful arias. To recap: long before the opera starts, the older Count DiLuna ordered a gypsy woman burned on the stake for having allegedly cast a spell on his younger son. Her daughter, Azucena is thought to have kidnapped said younger son in revenge, and burned him as well. But, ooops, she was clumsy, had not slept well, and she put the wrong kid, her own, in the crucible. Happens all the time. Babies, they all look like toads anyway. And we have put salt instead of sugar in our coffee, it's easy to get confused. We lost us to meth. Years down the line, the kid she raised, now a heroic troubadour (the Trovatore of the title) falls in love with the beautiful Leonora. So does the troubadour's evil older brother, setting up the opera in motion.

It's hard not to fall in love with a voice like Leonora's: Sondra Radvanovsky made a glorious debut, with the rich, creamy soprano voice that makes us swoon. She was matched with Marco Berti, a bright smooth tenor, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, the baritone who already opened the season last year in Simon Boccanegra. Dmitri sounds like he has a piece of gauze in his mouth in terms of diction, it comes out a bit muffled, kind of like a singing Bill Walton. This does not affect the musicality of his sound though, and definitely not his bottom line: he must be doing something right, as we were happy to see he pulls a couple mil a year. The lead trio has the acting chops to match, and the stage direction (Walter Sutcliffe) keeps things lively.

Stephanie Blythe sang Azucena, and look at what meth did to her. She could use a blob of shampoo for sure. She had the spooky gypsy down pat, and her voice has so much power in the low register, it's hard to resist. The role took her a bit higher than her mezzo comfort zone, where she is a bit more shrieky. Still, it was a dominant performance, one for which she expected, actually even demanded, applauds, by staying immobile just a tad too long at the end of a couple arias.

The set if fugly but practical. David McVicar reset the opera in Spain during the Napoleonic war, a fact that you have to read in the program notes to figure out. It's a dark fortress which spins on a lazy Susan. A few people are hung from poles to the side for good measure, but you have to pay attention to notice. And that would mean keeping your eyes and ears off the singers, a big mistake.

The supporting cast is consistently excellent, from the first aria by Burak Bilgili to Adler Fellow, Andrew Bidlack who closes the credits. We were at first a bit concerned about our seating assignment, right next to two mountains of muscle from the Pacific Islands. We were convinced the Fijian national rugby team had taken an interest in opera. But then, why could they sing the US national anthem, and so well? Turns out we were right by Quinn Kelsey, who will act the young count in last two performances and who is totally charming. You're singing an evil, evil man, we told him. "I know, it's fun!"