United States Handel, Ariodante: Soloists, Chatham Baroque / Anthony Walker (conductor). Pittsburgh Opera, CAPA Theater, Pittsburgh, 21.4.2023. (RP)
Production:
Director – Crystal Manich
Sets – Ningning Yang
Costumes – Grace Kang
Lighting – Cindy Limauro
Choreographer – Michael Pappalardo
Cast:
Ariodante – Jazmine Olwalia
Ginevra – Emily Richter
Polinesso – Chuanyuan Liu
Lurcanio – Daniel O’Hearn
Rè di Scozia – Evan Lazdowski
Dalinda – Julia Swan Laird
Dancers – Tori Casagranda, Savionne Chambers, Julia Wasilewski#
Pittsburgh Opera’s manufacturing of Handel’s Ariodante is a delight. The forged, drawn from the corporate’s Resident Artist Program, brings fashionable singing and youthful zest to considered one of opera’s nice dramas. Music shouldn’t be the one means by means of which emotion is expressed on this manufacturing, nevertheless, as director Crystal Manich makes use of colour and light-weight to equal impact.
The plot of Ariodante is taken from Ariosto’s epic Orlando Furioso, during which Ginevra, the daughter of the Scottish king, is betrothed to Ariodante who has a rival in Polinesso. With the unwitting help of Dalinda, Polinesso dupes Ariodante and the king into believing that Ginevra has been unfaithful. The distraught Ariodante vanishes, and rumors flow into that he jumped into the ocean.
Polinesso seizes the chance to win Ginevra as his spouse by defending her honor in mortal fight. His opponent is Lurcanio, Ariodante’s brother, who’s in love with Dalinda. Victorious in battle, Lurcanio is united with Dalinda, and Ariodante reappears to say Ginevra as his personal.
Ningning Yang has created an surroundings of moveable, one-dimensional, tree-like cutouts and suspended fixtures for the manufacturing. Intertwined within the hangings are tubular lights, which might change colour immediately, as can the whole stage. Lighting is an integral a part of this manufacturing, and Cindy Limauro’s skill to seize emotion in colour has the dual virtues of being efficient and delicate.
If the manufacturing’s sensibilities tilt in the direction of a timeless modernity, the costumes anchor it previously. Grace Kang’s designs, particularly the flowing attire for the ladies and the crown that sits on the king’s head, evoke the romance and gallantry of knights in shining armor and damsels in misery.
Shorn of a few minor characters and a few music, this Ariodante runs simply shy of two-and-a half hours. (Most recordings clock in at properly over three hours.) The pruning did no hurt to the narrative circulate of the opera whereas retaining one of the best of Handel’s most elegant rating.
As Ariodante, Jazmine Olwalia sang with virtuosity, agility and wealthy tone. Ariodante’s ‘Scherza infida’ was a heartfelt expression of grief that was as shifting because it was stunning. Handel, nevertheless, lavished his inventive genius to a far larger diploma within the music that he composed for Ginevra who, in spite of everything, is the character round whom the motion revolves.
There is a radiance and lighter-than-air high quality to Emily Richter’s soprano that was ideally suited to Handel’s alluring melodies. Richter’s trills and runs have been beautiful, but it surely was her skill to caress an extended, spinning phrase that was actually particular. Her singing in ‘Il mio crudel martoro’, Ginevra’s expression of despair after she has been falsely accused of infidelity and advised of Ariodante’s loss of life, was as shifting because it was pretty.
Bass-baritone Evan Lazdowski introduced dignity to his function as king and father. His sonorous voice confirmed to its greatest benefit within the king’s farewell to his daughter, ‘Al sen ti stringo e parto’. Dalinda suffers a lot the identical emotional trajectory as does Ginevra within the opera, and Julia Swan Laird’s silvery lyric soprano was as efficient in expressing pleasure because it was sorrow.
Polinesso and Lurcanio are the dramatic and vocal counterweights to the opposite characters within the opera. They are males of motion, and the music Handel wrote for them is forthright and daring, simply the kind of roles for countertenor Chuanyuan Liu and tenor Daniel O’Hearn.
Chuanyuan Liu’s Polinesso was as broadly drawn dramatically because it was skillfully etched vocally. His countertenor is extra fine-grained than piercing, however the flare and depth with which he sang matched the dastardly glint in his eye. Daniel O’Hearn’s stand-and-deliver strategy to his foe was matched by his forthright singing. He is a tenor spelled with a capital ’T’.
At Covent Garden, the place Ariodante premiered in January 1735, Handel had the usage of a troupe of dancers imported from the Paris Opera. Michael Pappalardo’s choreography, as danced by Tori Casagranda, Savionne Chambers and Julia Wasilewski, supplied visible curiosity in addition to one other means to specific emotion in actions as swish and light-weight as any of Handel’s vocal traces.
In the pit have been members of Chatham Baroque, Pittsburgh’s internationally acclaimed early music ensemble. The musicians performed with the verve and keenness for which they’re famend. The stirring tones of the brass, though deployed sparingly, lent a very martial flare to the efficiency, which was led by Anthony Walker, the Pittsburgh Opera’s music director.
Rick Perdian