SF Opera's Il Trovatore 2nd Cast and L'Abduction from the Seraglio
Mary Dunleavy (Constanze) and Matthew Polenzani (Belmonte).Photo by Cory Weaver/SF Opera
The Abduction from the Seraglio felt like a light palate cleanser after the earlier, headier productions. It's a comedic endeavor, full of Mozart's sparkling grace. The current production at the SF Opera made things even more palatable by translating the spoken text in English, keeping the sung bits in the original German.
Yet, we felt a step down from the bar set thus far this season, both musically and theatrically. Conducting, Cornelius Meister was out of sync with his singers for the performance we attended early in the run. His strings sounded slippery in the overture, as if taken too fast. Some singers, Peter Rose in particular, just could not just find his beat. Both have excuses, since Cornelius, born in 1980, is among the youngest conductors to lead the SF Opera ever, and we knew Rose would later miss a performance due to personal reason. Cornelius will assert himself more as he grows up, we're sure.
And it's too bad: Peter Rose's Osmin was powered by a guttural V12 engine. In comparison, Mary Dunleavy's Costanze sounded like a vespa: shrieky at high rpms, with a pitch we found difficult to locate. She displayed vocal agility nonetheless and gave a committed performance. We enjoyed Anna Christy's Blonde better: cute, perky and delightful (Anna is a recurring recurring visitor). The story goes like this: Costanze is imprisoned in Pasha Selim's harem, with her servant Blonde, and another servant, Pedrillo. Pedrillo's master is Constanze's lover, Belmonte, who attempts to rescue them all. Matthew Polenzani is the suave fiancé and in a casting strike of genius, he's a John Travolta look alike. His rounder sound contrasts nicely with that of his Constanze, making for pretty duets. Tenor Andrew Bidlack (Pedrillo), an Adler fellow, steals a few arias and comic moments.
On the stage setting side, it's dull. The set is pretty much identical all throughout, and displays a stage within the stage, an idea that has been a cliché since Hamlet. We haven't found what this distanciation brings to this opera, please clue us in.
As for Il Trovatore, two of the greatest voices of today, Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Stephanie Blythe, left the cast for the last two performances. He was replaced by Quinn Kelsey who brought more physicality (he lifted up and carried Sondra Radvanovsky of the stage like she was a feather; we've met her, she's quite tall and strong) but less vocal heft. Still he sounded great in a few arias. Stephanie Blythe's departure left an even bigger hole: Malgorzata Walewska could act things with more conviction, kneeling down where Blythe would bend forward, but we had been spoiled earlier: the two voices are just not in the same league.
Sondra Radvanovsky still magically transported us to a realm of pure delights, even though Maestro Luisotti had to struggle a bit frantically at times to keep her attention in sync, lifting both arms up to vigorously signal the down beat. He still congratulated her by wagged his baton with glee at the end of her D'amor sull'ali rosee aria. Luisotti actually needs a wrist strap attached to his stick, he lost it again for a while, as he did during the opera in the park concert.