Shamefully, scandalously late -- here at last are my thoughts on Mozart's Abduction From the Seraglio which I saw at Opera Atelier in Toronto three weeks ago! Better late than never....
The Abduction was Mozart's first really big success as an opera composer, and remained the audience favourite among his operas for the rest of his life. No wonder! Mozart adapted the well-known traditional situation and stock characters of the Italian commedia dell'arte to a fashionably exotic setting in Turkey, and then skilfully clothed the whole with some of his most genial music.
The Abduction was a relatively informal singspiel, not a stiff-necked full opera for the Italian theatre. As such it included much spoken dialogue between numbers. In presenting such a piece to a Toronto audience, Opera Atelier very sensibly decided on the hybrid course of singing the music in the original German, while presenting the dialogue in English. Okay, so it's not purist, but really, is a typically raunchy, subversive commedia dell' arte the place to start fussing about artistic purity?
For my money, not!
This was the first opera I ever saw Opera Atelier stage, and that was five years ago. I've been a determined attender ever since, and I have realized that this inventive company's productions often tread the line between comic insanity and artistic purity. Sometimes this does not serve the work in hand too well, but in this case the method suits Mozart's sparkling comedy right down to the ground.
The six principals were all excellent in their roles, but three in particular stood out for me. First was Adam Fisher, making his Opera Atelier debut as Pedrillo, the comic servant. His on-stage shenanigans were so energetic that they were causing me to feel breathless, just from watching, but Fisher had no trouble at all keeping his singing pure and clear throughout, with a fine light tenor made to order for this role. Carla Huhtanen is a perennial favourite of mine, and of Opera Atelier and its audiences alike, for her sparkling voice and pinpoint-accurate comic timing. These, combined with a face that often assumes a sassy smirk, are just the thing for Pedrillo's girlfriend Blonde, the maid who wraps everyone around her little finger in the cutest, funniest way.
The prize of all goes to Gustav Andreassen as Osmin, the harem master. His mobile face is made to order for comedy work, and his flexibility and strength of voice did full justice to Osmin's sizable and challenging musical role. One of his funniest moments was his repeated mime of how he would make his tormentor Pedrillo's neck loosen and twist with a hangman's noose around it as he described the same in his Act I aria.
This is not to say that the other three were no good! Pity Ambur Braid, for instance, faced with the formidable vocal challenge of Constanze's infamous Martern aller arten! But she, Curtis Sullivan (the Pasha Selim) and Lawrence Wiliford (Belmonte) all gave fine accounts of their music.
Margaret Lamb's costumes were particularly good for this production. Bright notes of colour were everywhere, as suited a light-hearted comedy. Colour-coordinated outfits in red (for the noble couple) and blue and yellow (for the servant couple) were a great touch, as was the use of commedia-styled diamond patterning in the costumes of Blonde and Pedrillo. Gerard Gauci's sets created an impression both sumptuous and exotic, an ideal combination.
It seems almost superfluous to mention the predicable excellence of the Atelier Ballet, the chorus, and the Tafelmusik Orchestra, or of the conducting of David Fallis which, securely as always, held the production together on its merry way.
A delightful, entertaining afternoon of music theatre, and one in which the entire production and staging was in perfect accord with the world revealed by the story, dialogue, and music.
No comments:
Post a Comment