The two 200th-birthday boys of 2013, Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi, have been staples of the world’s opera houses since middle of the 19th century, and nothing’s changed today.
Each of the three area opera companies will feature work by Verdi in the 2013-14 season, and one of them will offer Wagner: Sarasota Opera is mounting The Flying Dutchman. Florida Grand Opera, under the command of its new executive director, Susan Danis, had hoped to present Tristan und Isolde this year but will postpone it until the 2014-15 season.
Here is a look at the three companies’ seasons, and some special opera presentations outside it:
Palm Beach Opera: The West Palm Beach-based company opens its 52nd season’s three mainstage productions in January with Macbeth, Verdi’s earliest Shakespeare opera, and one in which he made his first great breakthroughs to the kind of realistic characters he would expect from then on.
The company still double-casts shows even though it has only three performances instead of four, having discarded the Monday matinees two seasons back. Baritone Michael Chioldi and soprano Csilla Boross play the murderous thane and his bride, spelled on Saturday night by Luis Ledesma and the big-voiced Jennifer Check, last seen here in Bellini’s Norma. The veteran French director Bernard Uzan helms the production, with conductor David Stern leading the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra (Jan. 24-26).
Last season, the company mounted Rossini’s La Cenerentola with the luminous Vivica Genaux in the title role and the Italian baritone Bruno Pratico as Don Magnifico. Genaux will be back in town Oct. 12 only for a benefit recital for the Miami choir Seraphic Fire, but Pratico will return to the PBO stage as Dr. Bartolo for Rossini’s best-known and best-loved opera, The Barber of Seville.
The other four principals are new to the company, including Russian baritone Rodion Pogossov as Figaro, a role he sang last year for the Metropolitan Opera, and the Spanish mezzo Siliva tro Santafé, a bel canto specialist, as Rosina, which she sang last season for San Diego Opera. Two Americans, baritone Wayne Tigges and tenor David Portillo, round out the cast as Don Basilio and Count Almaviva, respectively. French conductor Patrick Fournillier, a champion of Jules Massenet, conducts, and Portland Opera general director Chris Mattliano is the stage director (Feb. 21-23).
The final mainstage production is Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann, left incomplete at the composer’s death in 1880, but even in its cobbled-together state one of the more popular operas in the world. A major operatic star, bass-baritone Mark Delavan, celebrated for his two appearances as Wotan in Wagner’s Ring cycle at the Met in 2008 and 2010, sings the four villains; Italian tenor Giuseppe Filianoti sings the hapless Hoffmann.
Irene Roberts, a Japanese-American mezzo who was a memorable Young Artist for the company two years running, returns to West Palm as the Muse (and Nicklausse), while the three objects of Hoffmann’s desires —Olympia, Antonia and Giuletta — are sung by Ashley Emerson, Eleni Calenos and Geraldine Chauvet, respectively. Stage direction is by Jay Lesenger, director of New York’s Chatauqua Opera; the American conductor Christian Knapp will direct the music (March 21-13).
Last year, the company closed its season with two fully staged Young Artist productions in April of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at the Wold Performing Arts Center at Lynn University. Another Young Artist production has not been scheduled this season, which is unfortunate; one hopes this very important experiment is repeated soon.
Also on tap are two of the popular One Opera in One Hour productions at CityPlace’s Harriet Himmel Theater (Jan. 31 and Feb. 28). The operas have not been announced, but insiders say one of them is likely to be American composer Ned Rorem’s Our Town, based on the Thornton Wilder play.
The season actually gets underway on Dec. 14 with an afternoon outdoor concert at the Meyer Amphitheatre on the Intracoastal Waterway; tenor James Valenti will be joined by other soloists, plus the orchestra and chorus, for a free program of opera arias and ensemble pieces.
For more information, or to buy tickets, call 833-7888, the Kravis Center at 832-7469, or visit www.pbopera.org.
Florida Grand Opera: The Doral-based company opens its 73rd season in gutsy style by mounting only the fifth-ever production of Marvin David Levy’s Mourning Becomes Electra.
Levy, a Fort Lauderdale resident, wrote the work on commission for the Metropolitan Opera in 1967, where it had its premiere. It has since been staged only at New York City Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Seattle Opera. Based on Eugene O’Neill’s play of 1931, which was a retelling of the Oresteia plays of Aeschylus.
Soprano Lauren Flanigan sings the role of Christine, and bass Kevin Langan is Gen. Ezra Mannon; Canadian soprano Rayanne Dupuis is Lavinia, baritone Morgan Smith is Adam, and Jason Collins is Orin. The Minnesota-based Kevin Newbury, who staged Romeo et Juliette for Palm Beach Opera a couple seasons ago, handles the stage direction, with artistic director Ramon Tebar in the orchestra pit (six performances from Nov. 7-23).
Verdi’s third opera, and his first hit, Nabucco, is up next, with the Ukrainian-born soprano Maria Guleghina and the American Susan Neves trading off as Abigaille, and Nelson Martinez and Dario Solari swapping places as Nabucco. Bass Kevin Short is Zaccaria in this tale of the Babylonian captivity, with its classic choral aria, Va, pensiero, which was forever associated with Verdi; indeed, the crowds sang it in the streets during his funeral procession in 1901.
Thaddeus Strassberger, who designed a Nabucco for Washington National Opera in 2012, brings that production to FGO; Tebar conducts. (eight performances from Jan. 25-Feb. 8)
For the third opera in the season, FGO will mount Puccini’s Tosca, in a production created for Fort Worth Opera. Sopranos Kara Shay Thomson and Jouvanca Jean-Baptiste are the double-cast heroines, alternating with Rafael Davila and Diego Torres as Cavaradossi. The American baritone Todd Thomas plays one of opera’s great villains, Baron Scarpia, chief of the Roman secret police. Stage director is the Argentine-born Jose Maria Condemi, artistic director of Opera Santa Barbara (eight performances from March 29 to April 12).
Replacing FGO’s Tristan this year is Thaïs, Massenet’s opera of lust triumphing over faith as the monk Athanael falls for the courtesan Thaïs. Cuban-American soprano Eglise Gutierrez and the American soprano Angela Mortellaro share the role of Thaïs; bass-baritone Kristopher Irmiter is Athanael. Martin Nusspaumer is Nicias and Adam Lau is Palemon.
French director Renaud Doucet returns to FGO to stage Thaïs, and Tebar handles the conducting duties (six performances from May 3-17).
FGO also will welcome soprano Deborah Voigt to the house Oct. 26 for a benefit gala. Members of the Young Artists program will perform, and Voigt will receive a lifetime achievement award.
Most of the FGO performances are at the Ziff Ballet Opera House at the Arsht Center in downtown Miami; some of the productions also travel at the end of the run to the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale. For more information, call 800-741-1010 or visit www.fgo.org.
Sarasota Opera: Victor DeRenzi’s company opens its fall season with two works, Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus and Benjamin Britten’s The Little Sweep. All performances are at the Sarasota Opera House.
Fledermaus, easily the Waltz King’s most popular stage work, offers much opportunity for humor with its crazy story of a wild party and pleasure-seeking deception. The cast includes Danielle Walker, Angela Mortellaro, Blythe Gaissert, Joshua Kohl, Sean Anderson and Matthew Hanscom. DeRenzi conducts, and the stage direction is by Stephanie Sundine (six performances from Nov. 1-15).
Britten’s The Little Sweep, written for children in 1949 as part of a multi-part entertainment called Let’s Make an Opera, tells the story of an apprentice chimney sweep who is freed from the clutches of his cruel master by a group of children. The production by Sarasota Youth Opera will be presented twice, on Nov. 9 and 10, and includes Jesse Malgieri and Constandinos Tsourakis in its cast. The show is stage directed by Martha Collins and conducted by Jesse Martins (Nov. 9-10).
Sarasota, which presents its four winter season operas in repertory, is in the middle of a complete Verdi cycle; two of the Italian master’s operas are on the bill this season, beginning with Il Trovatore, one of the trilogy of 1850s operas (the others are La Traviata and Rigoletto) that established Verdi’s popularity, which has not waned in the intervening 160 years. Mezzo Margaret Mezzacappa is the Gypsy woman Azucena, Reyna Carguill is Leonora, and Kirk Dougherty sings Manrico. DeRenzi conducts, Sundine stage directs (10 performances from Feb. 8-March 22).
Rossini’s Barber of Seville is up next, with Chrystal Williams, a graduate of the Yale School of Music, in the role of Rosina, Hak Sook Kim as Count Almaviva and Marco Nistico as Figaro. Baritone Steven Condy is Dr. Bartolo, and Matthew Burns is Don Basilio. Italian conductor Marcello Cormio makes his Sarasota Opera debut, and University of Colorado opera studies director William Gustafson stage directs (nine performances from Feb. 15-March 21).
The Flying Dutchman, Wagner’s 1843 tale of a ghostly mariner doomed to roam the seas forever unless he finds true love, is the company’s third production. The all-American cast includes Kevin Short as the Dutchman, with soprano Dara Hobbs as Senta and tenor Michael Hendrick as Erik. Bass Harold Wilson handles the role of Daland. Des Moines Metro Opera music director David Neely conducts; the stage director had not been announced as of mid-September (seven performances from March 1-23).
The fourth opera in the season is Jérusalem, Verdi’s French-language revision of his earlier opera I Lombardi, a tale of the First Crusade in the last years of the 11th century. It will be the 30th opera of the company’s Verdi Cycle, and features Danielle Walker, Heath Huberg and Matthew Hanscom; bass Young Bok Kim sings Roger, and Jeffrey Beruan takes the role of the papal legate. DeRenzi conducts; Collins is the stage director (six performances from March 8-22).
For more information, call 941-366-8450 or visit www.sarasotaopera.org.
Teatro Lirico d’Europa: Jenny Kelly’s touring company is a regular visitor to South Florida during the season, bringing one-night performances of opera, usually featuring solid if unfamiliar casts, but including a full orchestra and surtitles. These traditionally minded productions are often a good way for newcomers to opera to encounter these works.
Donizetti’s bubbly comedy L’Elisir d’Amore can be seen at the Sunrise Theatre in Fort Pierce on Jan. 23, and Bizet’s perennially popular tragedy Carmen is scheduled at the historic theater on Feb. 23. Call 772-461-4775 or visit www.sunrisetheatre.com for more information.
Opera on film: The Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach offers the popular Metropolitan Opera broadcasts for $27 each in its Gubelmann Auditorium. Scheduled this season is Puccini’s Tosca (Nov. 9), Handel’s Giulio Cesare (Nov. 23), Verdi’s Falstaff (Dec. 14), Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (Jan. 11), Shostakovich’s The Nose (Feb. 1), Dvořák’s Rusalka (Feb. 8), Borodin’s Prince Igor (March 1), Massenet’s Werther (March 15), Puccini’s La Bohème (April 5), and Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte (April 26).
These live broadcasts (some are encore performances) can also be seen in commercial theaters: The Cinemark and Shadowood theaters in Boca Raton, the Cinemark theater in Boynton Beach, Downtown at the Gardens 16 in Palm Beach Gardens, and Royal Palm Beach Stadium 18 in Royal Palm. They also are scheduled at the Treasure Coast Square Mall in Jensen Beach and the Port St. Lucie 14 in Port St. Lucie, as well as several theaters in the Fort Lauderdale and Miami areas, including Coral Springs, Hollywood and Hialeah.
Call 655-7226 or visit www.fourarts.org for more information.