Don Giovanni

Photo/Carol Rosegg

Although Don Giovanni is part of the opera-for-all program at New York City Opera, I guess it will always be that opera just isn't for all. In Hal Prince's production the limp trees are well-met by the limpid supertitles, and Susan Stroman's choreography, deliberate and symmetrical, could've come from a school on formless etiquette. Opera is built on long stretches of exposition, and nothing is ever said or done easily, but the trade off is that these sometimes mundane things are at least beautiful in the undertaking. Well, the only thing beautiful is the undertaking of Don Giovanni's soul, by a fantastically costumed Statue (the makeup artist ought to be credited). There are voices that are phenomenal, like Julianna Di Giacomo's Donna Elvira -- but squinting across miles of rows to see her pained expression takes away from what you hear in her soul. And you can tell that Daniel Mobbs is properly hamming up Leporello--you even laugh here and there, yourself--but when he sings, the orchestra washes his low baritone away. The debut performances of Mardi Byers, Aaron St. Clair Nicholson, and JiYoung Li (Donna Anna, Don Giovanni, and Zerlina) are perfunctory, with moments of mellifluousness, but nothing that you would call a breakout. I don't claim to be an expert on opera, so take this sand-grained post as opinion more than review, but this traditional Don Giovanni seemed to lack soul from the start.

La Boheme

photo: Carol Rosegg

City Opera's current La Boheme is set in Paris as usual but it's been time-shifted forward to the early months of World War I: the conceit makes for some fresh stage imagery and business but it's occasionally at odds with the narrative. (Why does Mimi fumble around with that unlit candle when there's electricity in this garret?) But once you look past the minor glitches that result from the directorial concept, this production of Boheme is heartfelt and intimate, with staging that more often than not plays the big emotional moments far downstage for the sake of immediacy. I prefer it for theatricality and for dramatic impact to the opulent Zefferelli production that is still in rotation next door at the Met. Inna Dukach and Dinya Vania, as Mimi and Rodolfo respectively, convinced as lovers in both joy and anguish and had their share of soaring musical moments together; their moonlit snowfall duet at the end of Act I was especially tender and well-articulated. So soon, but there were already handkerchiefs out in the audience. The best singing and the most vivid characterizations came, however, from this production's Musetta (Elizabeth Caballero) and Marcello (Brian Mulligan); they generated so much heat as the fiery often-fighting couple it's a wonder the snow didn't melt at the sight of them.

I saw La Boheme at City Opera's OPERA FOR ALL festival, a start-of-the-season tradition now in its third year that prices all seats opening weekend in the opera house at twenty five bucks. As always, it's a quick sell-out. This year, the company is going to carry that spirit into the whole season and offer at least fifty front orchestra seats for twenty five bucks each *at all performances*; details here. I predict a roaring success. New productions this coming season include Purcell's King Arthur, directed and choreographed by Mark Morris and costumed by Isaac Mizrahi, a fresh Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci directed by Stephen Lawless which will nod to the Italian neo-realist cinema of Rossellini and Visconti, and the American opera Vanessa by Samuel Barber starring Lauren Flanigan. Other highlights include major revivals of Verdi's Falstaff and Handel's Agrippina and familiar titles like Tosca, Don Giovanni, Carmen and, of course, La Boheme in rep. Opera for all indeed.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

photo: Michal Daniel

Well worth lining up for this (final) weekend, the Daniel Sullivan-directed ...Midsummer's... is easily one of the most entertaining productions of Shakespeare to grace Central Park in recent years. There are plenty of reasons why the production shouldn't come off as well as it does - the play's darker ruminations are breezed over, the set (mostly, a single gnarled tree) and the costumes (which riff on Edwardian England) don't work well together, in a handful of instances the dialogue has been turned into lyrics to inadvertently alienating effect. But none of that matters so much while basking in the glow of this charming production, which emphasizes all that is screwball in the comedy and which boasts a better, more unified ensemble than has become the Shakespeare In The Park norm. Here, the gals among the four central lovers are more emphasized than the guys, with Mireille Enos a strong, substantial Hermia and Martha Plimpton a strikingly resilient and passionate Helena. Although she flubs part of her first scene by racing through it, Laila Robins is a delight once her Titania is bewitched by love's spell and dewey-eyed over an ass-faced actor (played with gusto by Jay O. Sanders).

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Photo/Michal Daniel

To quote Shakespeare, Helena makes a heaven of hell. Martha Plimpton usually delivers (see The Coast of Utopia), so yes, I'll follow her, to "die upon the hand I love so well." Of course, there is no hell to be found in Daniel Sullivan's direction of A Midsummer Night's Dream, only magic. The First Fairy (Chelsea Bacon) does acrobatic burlesque with her tongue and body as she swings from branch to branch, easily purring her text, and Laila Robin's Titania plays footsie both with her words and her stockinged legs. Puck (Jon Michael Hill) is a magician who does slight of hand as much with his own spry self as with his multicolored cloths, and the faeries, creepy children straight out of Tim Burton's "innocence," give way to bucolic ditties in Oberon's (Keith David) deep dulcet tones. One never thinks "poor Bottom" in the light of such theatrical antics, much less Jay O. Sanders, who "brays" that role to great effect, nor does Sullivan dwell on the wild, unspoken violence: when it boils over, it is in stylized and greatly comic choreography, as Demetrius, Lysander, Helena, and Hermia all fly at one another in the name of love. The energy that Sullivan's achieved in this production is the true fairy dust that gives this Dream wings: reason and love, it's true, keep little company together.

[Also blogged by: Patrick]

Scarcity

****

Atlantic Stage

Jesse Eisenberg, the young actor who so brilliantly held his own against the likes of Jeff Daniels and Lara Linney in the film The Squid And The Whale , proves yet again with his intense multi-dimensional performance in Lucy Thurber's absorbing new drama, Scarcity, that there is no question we have a very special and confident actor here. With an awkward, quavering tone, his character slyly feels his way through this play figuring out just what he can and can't get away with as he is pulled in all directions by his mother, father, sister and teacher. Taking place in rural Massachusetts this play was all about the smart poor kid trying to find a way out of the drunken destitute environment he has been raised in. Happily the play works very well and Kristen Johnston and Michael T. Weiss as drunk mommy and drunk daddy crank out a couple of very impressive performances of their own. This is a recommender.

100 Saints You Should Know

David's already captured the joy of seeing Lois Smith on stage (although I'll add, in something good, because Surface to Air was awful). And Patrick's already pinpointed the "elegant gracefulness" and "prickly humor." I've got a lengthy preview up if you click "Read On" below, so rather than rehash how much I enjoyed 100 Saints You Should Know, I'd like to highlight a moment: Matthew (Jeremy Shamos) has just been told by Abby (Zoe Kazan) that it's alright to say "I don't know" (which he then does), and now stands in a hospital waiting room with Theresa (Janel Moloney), a professional maid who seeks salvation--and perhaps something more--from him. The two, on diverging paths to and from faith, stand in the stark glow of an overhanging light, and Matthew confesses why he's been forced from the rectory--he was caught with male nude photographs--and speaks of his yearning to be touched. In the quietest, most fragilely beautiful moment on stage this year, Theresa reaches out to him, lightly brushing his head as Matthew stares out, at--well, that (like the play's meaning) is for the audience to decide.

[Read on] [Also blogged by: Patrick | David]