It’s fair to say the world of opera is in flux, with the nation’s preeminent company, New York’s Metropolitan Opera, sharply modernizing its repertoire, and locally, with the three opera houses pulling back from innovation somewhat and sticking with box-office certainties.
Palm Beach Opera
The West Palm Beach-based company opens its 62nd season with the most reliable patron-drawing composer of opera, Giacomo Puccini. To mark the centenary of the Italian composer’s death in 1924 — he died of throat cancer in Brussels, leaving his last opera, Turandot, not quite complete — the West Palm Beach-based company (newly relocated to digs in Northwood) starts off with Tosca. This 1900 opera about the singer Floria Tosca and her lover, the painter and political radical Mario Cavaradossi, who both are pursued by Baron Scarpia, the evil Roman chief of secret police, has been a repertory staple almost since its premiere. The double-cast opera will feature Maria Jose Siri as Tosca on Jan. 26 and 28, while Caitlin Gotimer sings the role Jan. 27. Mario Chang and Jonathan Burton (Jan. 27) sing Cavaradossi, and Greer Grimsley and Aleksey Bogdanov (Jan. 27) alternate in the role of Scarpia. The Israeli stage director Omer Ben Seadia is scheduled to stage-direct and principal conductor David Stern leads the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra. (Jan. 26-28, Kravis Center, West Palm Beach)
Next up is The Tales of Hoffmann, the final work and only full-length opera of Jacques Offenbach, who made his fame in mid-century Paris with his satirical operettas and their witty, charming music (the “Can-Can” is perhaps his best-known tune). Offenbach died in 1880 without finishing this work, which is based on the stories of the German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann (The Nutracker), and features Hoffmann as a lovelorn poet whose dreams are always thwarted by a malevolent figure working against him. Kang Wang and Dominick Chenes (March 2) share the role of Hoffmann; the four heroines are sung by Brandie Sutton and Erika Baikoff (March 2), with Zachary Nelson and Mark Delavan (March 2) as the four villains; Emily Fons stars as the Muse. David Gately handles he stage direction, and Stern conducts. (March 1-3)
Closing out the mainstage season is one of the most beloved of bel canto operas, Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma. Featuring the famous Act I aria “Casta diva,” the opera pits the Druid princess Norma against the Roman army, though unbeknownst to her people, Norma has already had two children with the Roman proconsul Pollione. The opera requires a standout soprano for the title role, as well as for Adalgisa, her rival. Jessica Pratt and Marigona Qerkezi (April 6) share the role of Norma, with Ashley Dixon and Anne Marie Stanley (April 6) as Adalgisa. Paolo Fanale and Moises Salazar (April 6) share the role of Pollione. Stage action will be directed by Nic Muni, and Carlo Montanaro directs the music. (April 5-7)
The opera company’s annual fundraising gala is set for Feb. 5 at The Breakers, and always features a major opera star. This season, it’s mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, a fixture at the Met who also appeared with Palm Beach Opera for Puccini’s La Bohème during the outdoor festival it mounted at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
[Tickets can be had at pbopera.org or kravis.org; 561-833-7888]
Florida Grand Opera
The Miami-based company has announced a very conservative season, which as it turns out will be the last for General Director Susan T. Danis, who is stepping down after 11 years to pursue another opportunity, FGO said. Under Danis’s watch, the troupe made some major news in the operatic world with productions of Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s The Passenger and a revival of Marvin David Levy’s Mourning Becomes Electra.
There won’t be any of that kind of thing this season at FGO, which will open with Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, the Italian master’s most popular opera and one of the most beloved across the world’s stages. The 1853 tale of the consumptive courtesan Violetta Valery, who finds true love with Alfredo but agrees to give him up under pressure from his family, will have three performances at the Ziff Ballet Opera House in Miami and two more at the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale. Cecelia Lopez stars as Violetta, with Pavel Petrov as Alfredo and Troy Cook as Germont. Chia Pitino directs, with Joe Illick conducting. (Nov. 11, 12, 14, Miami; Nov. 30, Dec. 2, Fort Lauderdale)
Next up is another staple of the Italian Romantic repertory, Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. This 1892 verismo opera is technically in two acts, but is usually performed as a one-act on a double bill with Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana (the pairing known as Cav and Pag). It’s unusual that such a short opera would be standing alone, but the tale is a gripping one: A troupe of traveling players is in turmoil because its chief actor, Canio, suspects his wife, Nedda, has a lover, and indeed she does, in the person of Silvio. The culmination of that drama takes place within the play the troupe is presenting, and its brutal violence is something that shocks and thrills audiences to this day. Rising star Limmie Pulliam sings Canio opposite Kearstin Piper Brown as Nedda, while Robert Mellon sings Tonio, who also has designs on Nedda. Two old FGO hands, stage director Jeffrey Marc Buchman and conductor Gregory Buchalter, handle the production side. (Jan. 27, 28 and 30, Miami; Feb. 8 and 10, Fort Lauderdale)
FGO’s mainstage season wraps with probably the most popular of all operas, Puccini’s La Bohème. This 1896 story of four impoverished artists in 1830s Paris, and the love-at-first-sight meeting of the poet Rodolfo and the ailing seamstress Mimi, is one of the best-known stories of the operatic stage. Soprano Rebecca Krynski Cox takes the role of Mimi, with tenor Davide Giusti as Rodolfo. Baritone Craig Verm sings Marcello, but no singer for the role of Musetta, Marcello’s on-again, off-again lover, has yet been announced. (April 6, 7, and 9, Miami; May 2 and 4, Fort Lauderdale).
[Tickets: Visit fgo.org, www.browardcenter.org, or www.arshtcenter.org; 1-800-741-1010)
Sarasota Opera
Unlike the South Florida companies, which have to mount their productions in venues that are used for many other purposes, the Sarasota Opera has an opera house of its own on Pineapple Avenue in the artsy Southwest Florida city’s downtown. Sarasota Opera also is a repertory company, and runs its productions throughout the season.
Victor DeRenzi’s company begins its season in November with two performances of a concert devoted to the music of Puccini, starring sopranos Hanna Brammer and Erica Petrocelli; tenors Rafael Davila and Christopher Oglesby; and baritone Jean Carlos Rodriguez. But this isn’t just a way to present popular selections and leave it at that; DeRenzi has programmed selections from all 12 of Puccini’s operas, including his first two, Le Villi and Edgar. (Nov. 10, 12; Sarasota Opera House, 61 N. Pineapple Ave.)
Sarasota Youth Opera presents an opera early in every season, and this year, it’s a revival of Benjamin Britten’s The Little Sweep, premiered in 1949 at the Aldeburgh Festival, which the British composer founded. This opera for children tells the story of Sam Sparrow, an 8-year-old apprentice to an evil chimney sweep, and efforts by a group of children to set him free. (Nov. 4, 5)
The first opera in the four-production winter season is another box-office certainty: Georges Bizet’s Carmen. This 1875 opera relays the tragedy of the title character, a wild, untameable Roma woman who works in a Spanish cigarette factory and seduces Don José, a naïve soldier who wrecks his military career for her before he learns that she has tired of him and is moving on — a judgment he is not willing to accept. Mezzo-soprano Chelsea Laggan is Carmen, tenor Victor Starsky sings José, baritone Andrew Manea is the dashing bullfighter Escamillo, and soprano Sarah Tucker is Micaëla, the good girl from José’s hometown, who tries to lure him away from his downward path. Martha Collins stage-directs, DeRenzi conducts. (12 performances from Feb. 17 to March 22)
The best-known work of the bel canto master Gaetano Donizetti is next, with his Lucia di Lammermoor. This 1835 opera drawn from the work of Sir Walter Scott tells the story of Lucia, deeply in love with a man from a rival Scottish family who is forced to marry someone else, with horrifying consequences. Soprano Ashley Milanese is Lucia, tenor Christopher Oglesby is Edgardo, baritone Jean Carlos Rodriguez is Enrico, and bass Young Bok Kim is Raimondo. Mark Freiman directs, and Jesse Martin conducts. (Eight performances from Feb. 24 to March 23)
DeRenzi’s signal accomplishment at Sarasota Opera was his production of all 27 operas by Verdi, including earlier versions and later revisions. For the third opera of the season, DeRenzi chooses an early Verdi masterwork, Luisa Miller. This 1849 story set in 17th-century Austria relays the story of Luisa, who is love with Carlo, who in his turn is really Rodolfo, son of the cruel Count Walter. The count’s scheming ends up in tragedy for Luisa and Rodolfo. Soprano Aviva Fortunata is Luisa; her Rodolfo is tenor Rafael Davila. Ricardo José Rivera is Miller, Luisa’s father, and bass Vladislav Buialskyi is Count Walter. Stephanie Sundine directs; DeRenzi conducts. (Six performances from March 9-24)
The winter season closes with a complete rarity, Joseph Haydn’s L’infedeltà Delusa (Deceit Outwitted). Haydn wrote a good many operas for his employers, the Eszterhaza family, but they have been forgotten and overshadowed by the operas of Mozart. In this 1773 comedy, the peasant Filippo wants his daughter, Sandrina, to marry the rich farmer Nencio, but she has fallen in love with Nanni, a poor peasant. Meanwhile, Nanni’s sister Vespina is pursuing Nencio. Comic complications ensue, and ultimately love is triumphant. Soprano Hanna Brammer sings Vespina, and soprano Yulan Piao is Sandrina. Tenor William Davenport is Nencio, bass Filippo Fontana is Nanni, and tenor David Walton is Filippo. Stage direction is by Marco Nistico, Sarasota Opera’s artistic administrator, and Anthony Barrese conducts. (Five performances from March 15-23)
[Tickets: www.sarasotaopera.org; 941-328-1300)