So while it's tempting for smaller companies to program bonbons like Barber to please the masses, it's a nasty artistic quagmire if you're setting out to do the job well. Dramatic rehearsals often take a back seat to musical rehearsals when out-of-towners are gathered for their precious pre-performance tune-ups with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra.
That makes the bonbon Barber a gigantic challenge. So I'm happy to report that two little operatic Davids -- Opera Carolina in Charlotte and Piedmont Opera in Winston-Salem -- have double-teamed Goliath. After finalizing their co-op venture just this past February, they have conquered.
Utilizing a colorful, cunning pair of set designs by Allen Moyer leased from The Minnesota Opera, the Carolina/Piedmont co-production shifts the emphasis away from spectacle. James Meena, conducting the Charlotte Symphony, brought forth lively, sharply focused work from the pit, beginning with the famed opening overture.
Onstage, they were matched measure for measure by an effervescent six-pack of featured performers under the freewheeling direction of Bernard Uzan -- with just one notable exception. Dressed in striking Tyrolean garb, baritone Oziel Garza-Ornelas was making quite an agreeable splash in his OC debut in the title role, filling out Figaro's signature aria -- "Largo al factotem" -- with masterful brio. Until he reached the last trademark Rossini crescendo when tempo is pushed to the limit.
I can't tell you whether something he'd eaten made a sudden gaseous U-turn or whether he was experiencing opening night jitters, but when the CSO put the pedal to the metal last Thursday, Garza-Ornelas came up short of breath -- and fell noticeably behind in the dash to the finish. As the crafty mastermind who brings the ardent Count Almaviva to bliss with the overprotected Rosina, G-O's Fig was nearly flawless. But the robust aura of infallibility was never recovered.
Besides, he was mightily upstaged by mezzo Vivica Genaux's sparkling Rosina. More the sly coquette than the willful minx in her portrayal, Genaux commanded every tricksy coloratura twist with apparent ease and grace. We dipped, I suspect, close to the bottom of her range in her calling card aria, "Una voce poco fa," where she confides that a serenading voice has lodged in her heart. But nothing in Rossini's Rosina came close to the limit of Genaux's crystalline highs. Her appearance was more than sufficiently pleasing, and her complicity in duping Dr. Bartolo had a youthful, impishness that was perpetually captivating.
So there was definitely good cause for Count Almaviva to be singing so soulfully all evening long. And that's exactly what Paul Austin Kelly did in his OC debut -- as you expect from your Count Glamour Boy tenor. But Barber demands no fewer than three ID changes from our hero, two of them comical as he executes Figaro's scheme to gull Bartolo. Kelly does a creditable job in Act 1 masquerading as the drunken soldier who demands lodging with Bartolo, and he's terrific as the bogus music teacher who assails Bartolo in Act 2 with his wheedling.
Of course, none of the lovers' scheming and duplicity works half as well without a truly comical senex to suffer it all. Sporting a foppish pink outfit, Dale Travis was a fine foil as Bartolo. Though the bass baritone's resume includes little in the comic vein, Travis's florid rebuke of Rosina proves he should venture there more often. Likewise, deep-toned bass Kevin Bell as the true music tutor, Don Basilio, feasts on his comical aria advising Bartolo to slander our devilish Count.
Uzan understands Rossini comedy beautifully. He runs parts of the prolonged Act 1 closing chorus in slow motion and stop motion to inject new charm and lavishes plenty of tasty business on all participants during the bogus music lesson in Act 2. The "Bona Sera" when Basilio is shooed away gets milked resourcefully for its comic delay. Ditto the trio in the denouement when Figaro, Almaviva and Rosina agree -- interminably -- that they must escape immediately.
This Carolina/Piedmont production was every bit as well-sung and well-played as the Rossini Cinderella I saw last summer in Milan at La Scala, the Vatican of opera -- and nearly as hilarious. If you missed last week's performances at the Belk, this Barber is worth following to Winston as its run resumes at the gorgeous Stevens Center on April 14.
Meanwhile, Opera Carolina needs to contract the frontliners of this Barber -- and their able support -- to as many future productions as they can. While the price is right.
The Miss Firecracker Contest, currently on view at Off-Tryon Theatre, isn't as fragrant or as polished a piece as Beth Henley's more celebrated Crimes of the Heart. But up in NoDa, at the Cullman Avenue quonset, extra dollops of seediness -- and some inartistic rough edges -- fit well with the decor. Such as it is.
You get to see a superb performance from Lorraine Larocque as Carnelle Scott, the reformed town tramp who seeks validation and redemption as a beauty queen. It ain't pretty.
We get to see Carnelle clomping about and high-kicking her heart out, brandishing fireworks to the imaginary strains of the "Star Spangled Banner." We watch her getting measured by simpleton seamstress Popeye Jackson, who clearly has the hots for Carnelle's deranged cousin Delmount. We meet cousin Elaine, a former Miss Firecracker winner whose current hoity-toity lifestyle with a rich, dull, adoring husband precludes her seeking Delmount's swift release from the nearby asylum. And we hear about the cruel tyrants and ne'er-do-wells who raised Carnelle and her kin.
As the twisted, sweetly squalid plot unfolds, we learn that Delmount will actually be trading up to the dowdy Popeye from the last woman who graced him with her favors. That would be Tessy Mahoney, the gat-toothed wench whom Del deflowered in the Mahoney attic -- at her invitation. Meanwhile as the climactic Firecracker pageant careens toward the judges' final verdict, Carnelle must ponder whether or not she'll reclaim the affections of Mac Sam, a drifter who still carries the communicable disease Carnelle passed his way while she was sowing...whatever.
If you remember the thick Irish brogue Larocque lavished on Slippy Helen in her award-winning performance last year in The Cripple of Inishmaan, you'll run rather than walk to grab an earful of the thick Southern drawl she drops on Carnelle. The trashy twang is coupled a pure wide-eyed idealism that lifts her far above her previous life as the town's "hot tamale," despite her lingering lack of looks, talent, and taste.
John Hartness directs with a high voltage flair for Henley's comedy and a perfect understanding of her quirky ambivalence toward good ol' American materialism. But Off-Tryon's low budget peeps through the high voltage at times. Pageant scenery is colorful and adorable, but Carnelle's living room needs serious work. And please God, get poor Carnelle a pair of tap shoes!
Suzanne Hartness's costumes are totally on-target. Notice how she reserves an extra measure of tastelessness for the garments worn our dowdy seamstress. Karen Doyle Martin wallows convincingly in Popeye's physical plainness, selfless generosity, and simple-mindedness. OK, she may be a little too dumb for even Carnelle to hire or Delmount to love. But they deserve her.
There are actually some mildly touching moments between Pop and Del, largely because Martin and Peter Smeal do their mutual shyness so well. Smeal shy? Well, yes, at odd moments between galumphing about and bellowing with his customary rhino elan. And the sibling animosity between Delmount and Elaine works well with Donna Scott deftly walking the tightrope between a carefully cultivated, self-absorbed vanity and sudden relapses into generosity and family feelings.
Kim Watson Brooks proves to be both officious and wanton in successfully carrying off the odious and relentless Tessy. Alan Martin rounds out the cast as Mac Sam, the loyal, cuddly bum with the bottle and the lovelorn crush.
Except for Popeye, everybody in Henley's world is radically conflicted. Maybe that's why so many of them gravitate toward her.
But I doubt many who journey through Off-Tryon's rollicking Firecracker will be pondering that profundity. Lots of grungy fun up there in NoDa -- with plenty of declasse Southern flavor. A guilty pleasure to treasure.
Having seen North Carolina Dance Theatre's premiere of Jardi Tancat last year at Belk Theater, I was fairly amazed by how much better it played last week at Booth Playhouse as part of Innovative Works. Part of the improvement, I can't help but believe, came from the performers' new confidence in their affinity for this richly idiomatic Nacho Duarte work.
Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux's Etudes stood apart from the other staged pieces in its resolute abstractness and emphasis on technique. Nor did it look at all half-baked, though Amy Price-Robinson was a late substitution for an apparently ailing Lance Hardin.
The more textured, thematic pieces play more to the troupe's strengths and the dancers' individuality. Particularly welcome was the chance to see the late Salvatore Aiello's Clowns and Others. Brilliantly concepted -- for both the 14-member ensemble and key individuals -- and ranging from inhuman, mechanical movement to sentimental outpourings.
My favorite pieces of the evening were the two that were most linear and dramatic in their development, usefully juxtaposed one after another between the two intermissions. Mark Godden's Charlotte's Web was the more humorous of the two, beginning with our hero ravished by two corporate types in suits who fill his take-out bag with Big Macs and fries. Then a shaman-type of sprite (Jason Jacobs) snatches the prize, leaving our hero to rummage among the other bags lined up onstage. All empty. For some strange reason, our hero stuffs all the bags down his shirt before the great web -- and Charlotte (Traci Gilchrest) -- loom behind him.
Rugged Benjamin Kubie and Mia Cunningham were paired in Jacqulyn Buglisi's Threshold, an eerie idyll of birth, possession, passion, imprisonment, and death set to the music of Arvo Part. It's the darkest work I've ever seen from Cunningham -- very compelling.
More of the same is on tap (on toe?) for this week as Series B of Innovative runs this Wednesday through Saturday at the Booth. *
