A scene from A Masked Ball. Photo: Michael Cooper
Reviewed by James Karas
During the curtain calls for the
Canadian Opera Company’s production of A Masked Ball at the Four Seasons, the man
behind me blurted out a “boo” with such force that it startled me. Vocal
disapproval of a performance or a production is not unusual in opera, but this
one seemed more ferocious than most. Before we get to that barbaric review,
let’s give praise where it is deserved.
Let us praise Canadian soprano
Adrianne Pieczonka for a moving, vocally stunning and flawless performance. She
is Amelia, the hapless wife who falls in love with Riccardo (Dimitri Pittas)
but does not want to be unfaithful to her husband Renato (Roland Wood).
Amelia and Riccardo meet in a
graveyard at night and sing the gorgeous and lengthy duet “Teco io sto.” It
moves from the breathless, to the ecstatic, to the sublime and makes huge
demands on the soprano and the tenor. The duet displays an outstanding soprano
meeting the emotional and vocal demands and, unfortunately, the comparative
inability of Pittas to match her. It’s not that he has a bad voice; it’s just
that he cannot keep up with Pieczonka.
For an outpouring of emotion and
vocal splendour, her rendition of “Morro, ma prima” where she pleads for her
husband to let her see her son before he kills her is simply outstanding.
Dimitri Pittas has a good voice
at midrange but he cannot soar to the high notes as effortlessly as a
first-rate tenor should. He does not have a particularly big voice and although
he can do well in certain roles when paired up with a Pieczonka he simply does
not measure up.
Roland Wood has a rich baritone
voice and his Renato, the would-be-jilted husband of Amelia is very good. He
moves from faithful servant and best friend of Riccardo to murderously jealous
husband and assassin.
Mezzo-soprano Elena Manistina has
the meaty role of Ulrica a.k.a. Mme Arvidson (check name of hotel below). She
has a couple of dramatic arias that she delivered with relish but she was
ill-served by a sorceress’s den that looked like a hotel basement.
Soprano Simone Osborne played and
sang a perky Oscar. He/she is Riccardo’s attendant who unwittingly betrays his
master’s costume at the ball.
Directors Jossi Wieler and Sergio
Morabito created this production for Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden. The
opera was originally set in Sweden and involved the assassination of a king. On
the objections of the censor, the locale was changed to colonial Boston. Wieler
and Morabito decided to move the action to 1950s America and squeeze a
political scenario about a wise and benevolent leader concerned with racial
issues and social justice while practicing infidelity. If they had called
Riccardo Kennedy everyone one would have got the message without reading the
programme notes. The interpretation, if you can call it that, is at best a
stretcher.
The set by designer Barbara Ehnes
represents the United States in the 1950's. It is meant to be the ballroom of
the Arvedson Palace Hotel. On the left there is a stage at the back; on the
right rear there is a bar with a balcony on top; at the front there are theatre
chairs and red and white stacking chairs. The basic set, with minor changes,
serves as the den of the black sorceress Ulrica, the graveyard where the
gallows are and the house of Amelia in addition to a ballroom.
The costumes by Anja Rabes were
modern, of course, but she showed an unusual attraction towards pajamas and
housecoats. I have no idea why.
The set(s), the costumes, the
general approach left one at sea as to what in the world was supposed to be
going on. The singers, especially Pieczonka, and the Canadian Opera Company
Orchestra under Stephen Lord gave us terrific entertainment but in the end
there were some seriously flawed aspects.
No doubt the gentleman behind was
simply trying to express his frustration at those unfortunate aspects of the
production and he chose a less than usually civilized method of articulation.
____
A
Masked Ball by Giuseppe Verdi opened on February 2 and will be performed eight
times on various dates until February 22, 2014 at the Four Seasons Centre for
the Performing Arts, 145 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario. Tel:
416-363-6671. www.coc.ca
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