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<title>Opera at Metro Weekly (Newspaper Magazine of Gay and Lesbian Washington, DC)</title>
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<title>Metro Weekly magazine</title>
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	<title>Looney Tunes: Even if you first heard it from Bugs&#44; Rossini&#39;s The Barber of Seville shows there&#39;s plenty of spirited fun to be had in opera</title>
	<link>http://www.metroweekly.com/arts_entertainment/opera.php?ak=4506</link>
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Opera: Those of you raised on Looney Tunes might find it impossible to listen to Figaro&#39;s aria &#39;&#39;Largo al factotum&#39;&#39; from Rossini&#39;s Barber of Seville without having a flashback to Bugs Bunny torturing Elmer Fudd to snippets of the same&#46; The Barber of Seville And clearly the Washington National Opera saw no point in denying the inevitable when staging their season&#45;opener of Barber&#44; as they played the cartoon itself for the folks at Nationals Park waiting to watch the one&#45;off simulcast &#38;ndash&#59; too bad they didn&#39;t give those in the Opera House the same treat&#46; Still&#44; something of the cartoon spirit pervaded the main attraction&#44; from the painted curtains of the set to the mimed silliness of the chorus&#46; The message here was all about providing an accessible de&#45;mystifying piece of operatic entertainment and even some very fine singing&#46;Of course&#44; not everyone will enjoy such a classic dished up with the kind of prop&#45;heavy slapstick director David Gately favors&#44; and others may not take to the rather smug demeanor of Figaro himself&#44; sung by Simone Alberghini &#40;like most of the leads&#44; for half the run&#41;&#44; who controls the action with the snap of his fingers&#46; Perhaps he is meant to be Bugs&#45;like&#44; but with a sly grin and sideburns that would have done for Liev Schreiber in Wolverine&#44; Alberghini evokes creepy rather than clever&#44; especially when he freezes the action to hover over our heroine Rosina&#46; And Alberghini&#44; despite volume and a certain vocal charisma&#44; is not altogether easy on the ears&#46; He is a gravel&#45;inflected baritone&#44; lacking the kind of rich smoothness a master manipulator like Figaro needs&#46; Still&#44; this less&#45;than&#45;winning vibe is counterbalanced by the young lovers Figaro works to unite&#46; Silvia Tro Santafe&#44; singing the role of Rosina&#44; is one of the finest mezzo&#45;sopranos to grace the WNO in seasons&#46; Though she calls herself a mezzo&#44; she surely also has the qualities of a soprano&#46; She is as sure&#45;footed as it gets with Rossini&#39;s decorative flourishes and her tone is as golden as it is sweet&#46; Tro Santafe delivers a spirited but not over&#45;the&#45;top Rosina and as such she is an excellent foil to some of the more madcap performances&#46; Ardent&#44; but not making much in the way of actual chemistry with Rosina&#44; is tenor Lawrence Brownlee&#46; Rather heavy on the vibrato at first&#44; Brownlee eventually settled into his element&#44; achieving gorgeous range and thrilling dexterity&#46; He is more charismatic than convincing in his courtship of Rosina but it hardly matters in such a fast&#45;paced farce&#46; Carrying the comic load and doing it well&#44; is Donato DiStefano&#44; in the buffo role of Dr&#46; Bartolo&#44; Rosina&#39;s guardian and thoroughly unwanted suitor&#46; DiStefano works his way through a seemingly endless array of comic prop manipulations while managing to deliver his pleasing full bass with care and clarity&#46; He is the cornerstone of this production and his talent for delivering such a consistently well&#45;performed and sung Bartolo cannot be underestimated&#46; THE BARBER OF SEVILLE Sept&#46; 17&#44; 19&#44; 20 Kennedy Center Opera House &#36;25&#45;&#36;275 202&#45;295&#45;2400 www&#46;dc&#45;opera&#46;org Looking amusingly haywire is Eric Owens as the kleptomaniac Don Basilio&#44; who brings a somewhat off&#45;beat but engaging comic sense to the Don&#39;s comings and goings in the Bartolo household&#46; Cynthia Hanna and David B&#46; Morris&#44; as Bartolo&#39;s housekeeper and manservant respectively&#44; both enhance the comedy with nicely conceived characters &#38;ndash&#59; which are mainly mimed&#46; Hanna delivers her one aria with a compelling vocal presence and clarity if a touch of harshness around the edges&#46; In a small but memorable part&#44; baritone Oleksandr Pushniak sings a delightfully rich and limber Fiorello&#46;The chorus&#44; singing and acting as the police&#44; works overtime with some complexly choreographed cartoon fun&#46; They deserve kudos for pulling it off&#46; And so&#44; it seems that even the WNO acknowledges that even if your first acquaintance with this music was with Bugs&#44; there is no shame in it&#46; What better way to learn that opera can be fun&#63; ... (more)]]></description>
	<pubDate>Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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	<title>Deliciously Dire: There&#39;s much to savor about WNO&#39;s impressively well&#45;crafted&#44; imaginative and accessible &#39;Siegfried&#39;</title>
	<link>http://www.metroweekly.com/arts_entertainment/opera.php?ak=4226</link>
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Opera: Chances are you will not be seeing the Siegfried that opened this past Saturday night since the performance began with general director Placido Domingo&#39;s announcement that tenor Par Lindskog&#44; in recovery from serious bronchitis&#44; would not be singing until later in the run&#46; However&#44; the show had to go on and in an innovative move&#44; Lindskog acted and mimed his Siegfried while fellow tenor Scott MacAllister sang it&#46; Thus began a very novel but ultimately wonderful evening of Wagner&#46; This is the third offering from director Francesca Zambello in her quest to conceive an American &#34;Ring Cycle&#44;&#34; and while it fares far better than her Das Rheingold&#44; it falls short of the profound punch of her Die Walkure&#46; Still&#44; if you&#39;re anything other than a diehard traditionalist&#44; there&#39;s much to savor about this impressively well&#45;crafted&#44; imaginative and surprisingly accessible production&#46; &#39;Siegfried&#39; &#40;Photo by Karin Cooper&#41; Zambello sets her Siegfried in mid&#45;20th century Anywhere&#44; USA&#44; and this time it is an America lost to urban decay and ruined landscapes where the ravages of capitalism have left an underclass of humans and supernaturals alike&#46; Parallels to current events abound&#44; but the mood here is more about survival than sanctimony&#46; Particularly effective is Jan Hartley&#39;s projected imagery writ large during the overture and interludes and as the backdrop to the action&#46; Wagner&#39;s music makes the heart and soul soar &#45;&#45; if not always to Valhalla &#45;&#45; and such dramatic imagery&#44; though obviously not available in Wagner&#39;s day&#44; seems made for this music&#46; In excellent complement are set designer Michael Yeargan&#39;s thoughtful&#44; sometimes rueful&#44; sets&#44; full&#44; but not saturated with detail&#46; There is a dragon to be slayed in this tale&#44; and Yeargan&#39;s creation speaks to Wagner&#39;s myth and Zambello&#39;s vision with equal cleverness&#46;  ... (more)]]></description>
	<pubDate>Thu, 07 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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	<title>Sea&#45;Worthy: WNO offers unsurpassed excellence with the brooding &#39;Peter Grimes&#39;</title>
	<link>http://www.metroweekly.com/arts_entertainment/opera.php?ak=4137</link>
	<description><![CDATA[
Opera: As one familiar with England&#39;s wild and windy Norfolk coast&#44; there is much that resonates in the Washington National Opera&#39;s production of Benjamin Britten&#39;s Peter Grimes&#46; Set in a post&#45;war fishing village somewhere between Norfolk and the more southern Suffolk&#44; set designer Robert Innes Hopkins&#39; cluster of plain buildings amid a volatile sky nicely evokes this part of England&#39;s southeastern coast at its desolate best&#46; And though this coast is now popular with cosmopolitan weekenders and dedicated ornithologists&#44; even the briefest perusal of a local village newsletter reminds one that the picturesque settlements dotting the coastal road have not lost all of their insular ways and deeply held traditions&#46; Indeed&#44; these villages mark the edge of England&#39;s Big Sky territory known as the Fens&#44; a vast area of marsh&#45;turned&#45;farmland worked for centuries by the locals who are still referred to as Fenlanders&#46; &#39;Peter Grimes&#58;&#39; Washington National Opera It is a pleasure to be aware of this context when seeing Grimes&#44; but it is by no means essential&#46; Britten&#44; a master of poignant&#44; economical storytelling&#44; wastes no time in dropping us immediately into the middle of this dark&#44; utterly unforgiving tale&#46; In the very first scene we learn that the fisherman and loner Peter Grimes is suspected by his village neighbors of somehow murdering the young apprentice who died while working aboard his fishing boat&#46; And though Britten grips us instantly with the mystery of whether Grimes is some kind of abusive monster or merely a terribly unlucky man&#44; along with the question of what the village is going to do about it&#44; he refuses to give us easy answers&#46; We must live with the uncertainty of whether the &#39;&#39;evidence&#39;&#39; directs us to share the so&#45;called righteous condemnation of the villagers or whether it is nothing more than a pretext for the villagers&#39; animalistic urge to oust an outsider&#46; Soaring among these themes with breathtaking emotional power is Britten&#39;s score&#44; played beautifully by the WNO orchestra under the hand of conductor Ilan Volkov&#46; This is spectacular music&#44; at once evocative of the uncontrollable energy of the sea as it threatens the village&#44; and the roiling sea of human emotion as it threatens to destroy lives&#46; Britten captures despair&#44; horror&#44; awe and the human cry&#46; Though some may balk at the underpinnings of atonality in Peter Grimes&#44; patience will be rewarded with perhaps the most breathtaking aural experiences found in contemporary opera&#46;  ... (more)]]></description>
	<pubDate>Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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	<title>Lady Killer: Though sung beautifully by soprano Renee Fleming&#44; WNO&#39;s production of &#39;Lucrezia Borgia&#39; fails to fully satisfy</title>
	<link>http://www.metroweekly.com/arts_entertainment/opera.php?ak=3878</link>
	<description><![CDATA[
Opera: Despite the fevered grace renowned soprano Renee Fleming brings to the conflicted femme fatale of Donizetti&#39;s Lucrezia Borgia&#44; this is one opera that requires more than just a star turn in the title role&#46; With a narrative that offers a Lucrezia who is by turns a loving absentee mother and the equivalent of a 16th century serial killer&#44; any director has their work cut out for them&#46; Evil Woman&#58; Fleming Unfortunately&#44; director John Pascoe&#44; who gave us last season&#39;s fabulously conceived Don Giovanni&#44; seems more interested in innovation than cohesion this time around &#45;&#45; and the resulting production needs less of the former and more of the latter&#46; Perhaps the problem begins with Pascoe&#39;s concept of Lucrezia as a product&#44; indeed a victim&#44; of the deeply violent patriarchy into which she has been born &#40;Lucrezia is a real historical figure&#41;&#46; As likely as this may have been&#44; the ramifications are just not that apparent in Donizetti&#39;s work nor does Pascoe&#39;s interpretation inject it&#46; Lucrezia is certainly a volatile woman&#44; but what drives the side of her that is capable of killing&#44; a most fascinating question&#44; is never explored&#46; The disparity between the Lucrezia who loves so tenderly a son she never raised and her ability to &#39;&#39;go postal&#39;&#39; on a moment&#39;s notice is never reconciled&#46; It&#39;s a dramatic problem with the opera left unsolved by Pascoe&#46; Unfortunately&#44; if we cannot understand Lucrezia&#44; at least on some level&#44; we cannot feel her pain&#46;  ... (more)]]></description>
	<pubDate>Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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	<title>Passion Play: Wildly colorful&#44; full of dance and bare midriffs&#44; Bizet&#39;s beautifully melodic opera is gasp&#45;worthy and swoon&#45;worthy</title>
	<link>http://www.metroweekly.com/arts_entertainment/opera.php?ak=3800</link>
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Opera: With the Jumbotron extravaganza barely behind us&#44; one must wonder&#44; just a little&#44; why the WNO did not chose this production of Bizet&#39;s The Pearl Fishers as its &#39;&#39;come hither&#39;&#39; to the public&#46; Wildly colorful&#44; short &#40;relatively&#41;&#44; full of dance and bare midriffs&#44; this easy&#45;reader of an opera seems far more accessible when compared to the visually stodgier&#44; if admittedly more classic&#44; La Traviata&#46; Well&#44; whatever the rationale for the ballpark&#44; this version of Fishers is without doubt an excellent choice for the opera newcomer &#45;&#45; especially the musical theater buff ready to make the break&#46; The more seasoned&#44; of course&#44; will find the equation a tad more complex&#44; but rest assured the &#39;&#39;pearls&#39;&#39; are most definitely here&#46; The Pearl Fishers &#40;Photo by Karin Cooper&#41; The &#39;&#39;wow&#39;&#39; factor starts with sets designed by British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes&#46; The good news is that her giant color&#45;striped palms and illustrated pillars vividly frame a storytelling space perfectly befitting Bizet&#39;s long ago tale of faraway Ceylon &#40;Sri Lanka&#41;&#46; It is a concept reminiscent of charming Victorian&#45;era three&#45;dimensional toy theaters in which distance was suggested by layers of paper scenery set along the stage&#46; Here&#44; Rhodes&#39; cut&#45;outs deliver the same sense of distance but with a sense of whimsy rather than reality&#46; One wishes for even more scene changes in which to explore her world of color and line&#46; The bad news is that the brightly slash&#45;painted palms come dangerously close to a Target picnic&#45;ware motif&#46; And when it comes to costuming our exotic leads&#44; Rhodes takes us a mere hair&#39;s breadth from Disney&#45;on&#45;Ice&#46; Has she entered these ports on purpose or has commercial culture at last become one with pop art&#63;  ... (more)]]></description>
	<pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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