It pains me to say this, but my own experience with Mozart's early works is that they are by and large not especially interesting. Certainly not on the level of his mature works. In some ways that is excruciatingly true of this early opera. It seemed as if every aria was "Martern aller Arten"--young Wolfie seemed to have thrown all of his 14 year old bag of tricks into each aria. How I longed for a duet or trio, or a lyric aria instead of a florid one. In fact, the duet "Se viver non degg’io" and Aspasia's last act aria "Pallid' ombre" are so different from the remainder of the opera that it is almost startling.
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Nicholas Tamagna as Farnace and Andrew Drost as Mitridate Source: Little Opera Theatre of NY |
Also deserving of special praise is Claudia Acevedo, who sang Ismene, the foreign princess to whom Farnace is betrothed for political reasons. In another vocal comparison to Die Entführung aus dem Serail--and there will be more--I'd compare Ismene to Blondchen, and Ms. Acevedo has the goods. Beautiful, free high notes, mostly even singing throughout her range, and a believable portrayal of the wronged Ismene made the lovely Ms. Acevedo a joy to watch and hear.
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Serena Benedetti as Sifare and Erica Millera as Aspasia Source: Little Opera Theatre of NY |
Mozart is purported to have hated tenors, and there is ample evidence in this score. Blake Friedman is a fine young singer whom I've heard before. A young lyric tenor who will grow into fuller lyric repertoire, he would be a great choice for any sane Mozart role or Nemorino. I think he was miscast as Marzio, the Roman agent in cohoots with bad
As Mitridate himself, tenor Andrew Drost was also miscast. Mitridate requires the dramatic singing of Idomeneo, but with the tessitura of a male Konstanze. His many arias require low notes, high notes, coloratura, passion, and bravura. I have heard Mr. Drost sing very well, but this is not the role for him vocally. I will praise his committed portrayal of the many conflicting emotions of Mitridate, who must balance love, jealousy, and rage over actual and perceived betrayals.
I wonder whether the production team hate tenors, too. I simply can not agree with some of the decisions that I ascribe to conductor Richard Cordova or director Philip Schneidman. Why not make other casting decisions, or adapt or transpose some or all of the tenor arias? I think Mr. Drost was advised to sing his entrance aria sotto voce to portray the broken Mitridate, but it didn't work. And it must be said the costumer and director did the Mr. Friedman no favors at all. I'm told the intention was to make Marzio, admittedly a slimy character, look like a skeevy punker, but he actually looked like an evil Alfalfa in a long leather trench coat and ridiculous hair. The audience laughed when Mr. Friedman threw off the trench coat, revealing the Roman...er....uniform?....underneath, which must have been disconcerting.
There was a lot to like in this production, and aside from the missteps I name and a few others--a slow motion battle between Roman and Pontian forces behind Farnace's final aria? really?--I came away glad I'd seen the production. It is clear this company is committed to creating credible and professional performances of rare opera for an eager New York audience. They are successful fund raisers, clearly, with money wisely spent on facilities (the Goldman-Sonnenfeldt Auditorium at JCC), costumes by Sara James, an orchestra that seemed to know and appreciate what it was playing most of the time. Lighting by Natalie Robin and scenery composed of sliding drapes made effective use of projections by Alex Koch. Introductory images during the overture included a succession of maps of Asia minor to illustrate where Pontus is as well as a Mitridate family tree. LOTNY knows what it is doing, and the issues I describe didn't make me regret seeing this opera. I hope to see more from this group in the future.
1 comment:
David, thanks for your well-thought out assessment of the evening. I am so looking forward to seeing now, even more than before!
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