The Dallas Opera: February 12, 14, 18, 20, 26, & 28, 2010

Winspear Opera House

Review by Dean Cassella

This second production in the Dallas Opera’s first season in its new home was just what the doctor ordered, especially after the sumptuous and heavy fare served up with Verdi’s Otello at the season premiere.  Although one could certainly could not label Mozart’s last opera buffa collaboration with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte musically light, it does deliver laughs in some of the most sumptuous and delightful music that Mozart composed.

Originally set in eighteenth-century Naples, the plot centers around a case of deliberate mistaken identity between two pairs of lovers.  Two young men, Ferrando and Guglielmo are in the throes of young love with Fiordiligi and Dorabella.  A cynical old man, Don Alfonso, taunts them that it is impossible for women to remain faithful, should the men leave the scene for a while.  The resulting argument ends with a wager: Ferrando and Guglielmo will pretend to be called off for military duty, only to return in the guise of two Albanians and each actively try to court the other’s belle.

Jeffry Jones as Austrian Emperor Joseph II in the famous 1984 movie "Amadeus."

The opera was commissioned by none other than the Austrian Emperor Joseph II, best known in popular culture from the play/movie Amadeus.

This was Mozart’s third and last collaboration with Lorenzo da Ponte, a Venetian Jew who, as a child, converted to Christianity, took holy orders, and was eventually ran out of town for taking . . .liberties . . .with certain lady friends.  He then led a semi nomadic life, cutting a swath across Europe to London, and eventually settling in New York City as a greengrocer, and as the first professor of Italian at Columbia University (he also established the first Italian opera company in New York).  His collaborations with Mozart occurred early in his wanderings, when he was living in Vienna and trying to make his inroads in the Imperial court as a poet and librettist.  The story of Così was a allegedly based on a real incident that was making the rounds in Vienna at the time.

Last time around, the Winspear Opera House demonstrated marvelous acoustics with a full-sized late Romantic era orchestra.  The current production makes use of a comparatively tiny chamber orchestra, which poses a different set of resonance challenges.  I am delighted to report that the new opera house was able to handle these to remarkable effect.  Graeme Jenkin’s stately phrasing was carried with both a volume and a warmth that I have rarely heard in a full-size opera house.

Così is unusual in that there are only six roles which are very carefully balanced.  Soprano Elza van den Heever and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Holloway, as Fiordiligi and Dorabella respectively, have beautifully matched voices.  Miss van den Heever also displays considerable skills as an actress, and Miss Holloway, who graced the TDO stage last season with her interpretation of the love-sick Cherubino in La Nozze di Figaro, treated us to her wonderfully lilting vibrato.  Italian soprano Nuccia Focile sang a beautiful rendition of Despina, the cynical, deadpan maid who serves as a female counterpart to Don Alfonso, and who often reminds me of Alice Kramden on the Honeymooners.  Her petite stature helped to enrich the comic potential when she dresses up as a quack doctor and a notary during Act II.

The real star of this performance, though was the illustrious bass-baritone Sir Thomas Allen who, after almost 40 years on the boards of the worlds major opera houses, boasts a rich, powerful voice and a magisterial presence whenever he is on stage.  Tenor Brian Anderson as Ferrando, and baritone Michael Todd Simpson also did commendable jobs in their roles.

Robert Perdziola’s sets recast the time to around 1910.  The main set resembles an Egyptian-style casino, or hotel, lends itself to the time period it seeks to evoke.  I generally prefer sticking to the librettist’s original intentions, but the change in question does not seriously interfere with the work’s enjoyment in any way.

All in all, this is a fine production and one definitely worth seeing.

Next up: Donizetti’s Don Pasquale!