You may be
seeing only cabbage white butterflies in your garden just now,
but it’s
butterfly season at Cincinnati Opera.
The opera's 2008 summer festival opens June
11 with, what else, Puccini's
"Madame Butterfly" starring Chinese soprano Shu-Ying Li as the
steel papillon, Cio-Cio San.
The opera will be sung in Italian with English supertitles at 7:30
p.m. June 11 and June 13, 3 p.m. June 15, all at Music Hall. (Note
The production, minimalist
but suffused with color, is by Mark Lamos and Michael Yeargan for New York City
Opera (seen on PBS' "Live from
The wrenching story, ultimately based on autobiographical sources
about life in 19th-century
American naval officer B.F. Pinkerton (to be sung by tenor Frank
Lopardo) hires a Japanese "marriage broker," (Steven Cole as Goro) to
find a nubile young geisha (Cio-Cio San or Butterfly, age 15) willing to marry
him. Unknown to Butterfly, it is a sham marriage and Pinkerton departs
soon after the wedding night. Butterfly, who is deeply in love with
Pinkerton, believes the marriage is real and waits patiently for him to return.
Three years later he does, with his "real" wife Kate in tow.
Crushed and now the mother of Pinkerton's son (Tyler Christopher Backer, 6, in
a non-singing role), Butterfly commits suicide.
Butterfly's transformation from innocent child to disillusioned
woman is the real meat of this operatic warhorse, which is filled with Japanese
color (Puccini utilized familiar Japanese tunes) and potent drama.
Lamos will direct, with conductor Edoardo Müller in the pit.
Looking at Donizetti’s “Lucie de Lammermoor,” which takes place at 7:30 p.m. June
26 and 28 at Music Hall, semiothisa
carbonaria, or the netted mountain moth, a species of Lepidoptera native to
the Scottish highlands, has symbolic resonance to the opera’s ill-fated heroine.
Who could be more “netted” than poor Lucy,
forced by deceit her brother to marry someone she does not love, then denounced
by her true flame Edgar who doesn’t understand the situation?
“Lucie de Lammermoor” is the 1839 French revision
of Donizetti’s vastly popular “Lucia di Lammermoor.” Based on “The Bride of Lammermoor” by Sir
Walter Scott and set in
The villain is Lucy’s brother Henry, who
tricks Lucy into an advantageous (for him) marriage by presenting “evidence” of
Edgar’s infidelity. When Edgar, innocent
and unaware of any treachery, shows up at the wedding and curses Lucy, she goes
mad, kills her new husband Arthur in the bridal chamber and drops dead
herself. When Edgar learns of her death
and her faithfulness to him, he dispatches himself, too.
Adaptations in the French version (supervised by Donizetti himself and quite popular in 19th-century France) involve
doubling the villainy of brother Henry in the person of Gilbert (an expansion
of the huntsman Norman in the Italian version), deleting some music and making
changes to accommodate the French language. It will be sung in French with English
supertitles.
Starring as Lucy will be soprano Pamela
Coburn, with tenor Mark Panuccio as Edgar.
French-Canadian baritone Gaetan Laperriere sings Henry, with American
tenors John McVeigh and Jeremy Cady as Arthur and Gilbert, respectively. Raymond, a chaplain somewhat akin to
Shakespeare’s Father Lawrence, will be sung by Canadian bass Alain Coulombe.
The production, by John Conklin, is from
Glimmerglass Opera. Jean-Marie Zeitouni
will conduct, with stage direction by Mark Streshinsky.
Mexican composer Daniel Catan's "Florencia
en el Amazonas," third production
of the 2008 season, is very much butterfly-oriented with the heroine
traveling down the
Loosely based on Gabriel Garcia-Marquez’
novel “Love in the Time of Cholera,” the ground-breaking work was the first
Spanish language opera to be commissioned by a
It's huge," said Catan. "The boat that we have on
stage is full-sized and it moves with its own engine. Somebody’s inside driving
it." ("He has to have a very careful map because we don’t want
him to go into the pit," Catan joked in an interview the end of May.)
The boat, an Amazon River steamboat, is carrying opera diva Florencia
Grimaldi to sing at the opera house in
Also on the boat are a warring couple, Paula and Alvaro, trying to
re-kindle their marriage, a journalist Rosalba, who is writing a biography of
Florencia, the Captain and his nephew Arcadio, who hates life on the river.
Rosalba and Arcadio feel a mutual attraction, but resist. Welcoming them
aboard is Riolobo, actually one of the river gods, who can take any form he
wishes.
When the boat is grounded during a storm,
Arcadio takes the wheel and Alvaro falls overboard. Riolobo calms the
storm and rescues Alvaro. Paula and Alvaro are reconciled. Rosalba and Arcadio admit their love. As the
boat nears
American soprano Alexandra Coku will sing Florencia, with Mexican
tenor Arturo Chacon-Cruz as Arcadio and American baritone Carlos Archuleta as
Alvaro. Soprano Shana Blake Hill is the only member of the original cast
to be singing here. As the cover for Rosalba, she sang the role only once
-- from the pit while the scheduled (but indisposed) singer acted on the
stage. "She is very happy that ten years later, she is finally going
to be able to sing it on stage," said Catan.
Panamanian-American baritone Nmon Ford "may be the
perfect Riolobo of all times," Catan added. "He’s athletic, he
looks the part and has a booming voice. He’s a very commanding
performer."
Conductor for "Florencia" will be Steven Mercurio, with
stage direction by Andy Morton.
As for the final opera of the season, Verdi’s “La Traviata,” set for 7:30 p.m.
July 23 and 25 and 3 p.m. July 27 at Music Hall, consider the marsh
fritillary. Euphydryas aurinia is a critically endangered European butterfly
that still exists in
Verdi’s Violetta, the beautiful Parisian
courtesan who denies herself to save her lover Alfredo’s family from social
oblivion, is endangered throughout the opera, not just by the pain of self
denial when she gives up Alfredo, but by consumption. She succumbs to it at the end when Alfredo,
who has been convinced she no longer loves him, returns for one of the most
affecting farewells in opera.
In a recently announced role substitution, Cuban-American
soprano Eglise Gutierrez will sing Violetta in place of Hei-Kyung Hong, who
cancelled because of illness in her family.
Alfredo will be popular tenor Richard Leech, with French baritone
Philippe Rouillon as Alfredo’s father Germont.
The opera will be sung in Italian with English supertitles.
The production, a new one by director Bliss
Hebert and designer Allen Charles Klein, will make its world premiere here
(advance publicity describes it as “sumptuous and romantic”). Müller will conduct. Hebert will direct.
Cincinnati Opera’s resident lighting
designer is the talented and very accomplished Thomas C. Hase (who just renewed
his contract). Chorus master is Henri Venanzi.
The Cincinnati Symphony plays for all Cincinnati
Opera productions.
Students with a valid ID can get up to two tickets for $10 each at the Music Hall box office on performance days, beginning at 6 p.m. for evening performances, 1:30 p.m. for Sunday matinees.