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Opera Theatre of the Rockies' productions of Puccini's "Gianni Schicchi"
and Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci" - two popular masterpieces - range
from solid to occasionally spectacular, with some excellent young voices
- and a few excellent older ones - intelligent direction and evocative
costumes and stagecraft.
"Gianni Schicchi" is the third opera of Puccini's final completed
work, "Il trittico." It's more immediately appealing than the
other two, "Il tabarro" and "Suor Angelica."
Puccini is known for his heart-on-sleeve emotionalism, but "Gianni
Schicchi" is a comic opera based on an incident from Dante's "Inferno"
- and it's really funny. Director Marcia Ragonetti has played up Puccini's
opportunities for visual humor, and the results are knee-slappingly broad
as Schicchi, a cunning peasant, outwits a slew of greedy Florentine nobles
and garners a fortune for himself, his daughter Lauretta and her beloved
Rinuccio.
As Schicchi, Steven Taylor both sings and acts with a swagger that brings
this likeable character to life. Otherwise, this is an ensemble production,
giving only Lauretta and Rinuccio moments to shine. Her aria is one of
the loveliest melodies Puccini ever wrote, and Margaret Simpson sang it
with an affecting youthful earnestness. She's well matched by tenor Daniel
Fosha's likeable Rinuccio.
Gypsy Ames' beautiful costumes and Opera Colorado's appropriately fussy
set completed the atmosphere.
After the subtleties of "Gianni Schicchi," it takes the ears
and the mind a few minutes to adjust to the directness - even crudeness
- of "Pagliacci." Leoncavallo, one of music's one-hit wonders,
whose career after "Pagliacci" was a long anticlimax (one of
his last works was an operetta entitled "A chi la giarrettiera?"
- "Whose garter is this?").
"Pagliacci" is the story of the brutal Canio, opera's most famous
sad clown and his passionate, faithless wife, Nedda, as a traveling theater
troupe brings its play to life with tragic consequences.
The production features two outstanding performances. As Tonio, the hunchback
who's as evil as he is ugly, Norman Phillips brought the house down with
his prologue before the curtain even went up. Phillips' baritone is strong,
clear and expressive. And as Nedda, Lisa Walecki shines with her agile,
silvery soprano...
As Canio, Thomas Poole projects a mood of faded grandeur and hits the
notes solidly...
The other star of "Pagliacci" is the chorus, which sang superbly.
Robert Darling's set provided the evening's finest moment of stagecraft,
as the setting for the play-within-a-play went up before our eyes, beautifully
accompanied by Lloyd Sobel's dusk-to-night lighting.
In both works, conductor Thomas Cockrell got a focused, tight sound out
of the 26-piece orchestra.
Mark Arnest, The Gazette
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Pagliacci
