West Bay Opera Performance Reviews

The Marriage of Figaro

Opera is alive and thriving in the West Bay. Following an outstanding “Manon” by Opera San Jose last week, the West Bay Opera, this week, mounted at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto, “The Marriage of Figaro,” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, its finest production in recent memory. This is an opera for those who are, by conventional wisdom, mentally conditioned to believe they would never enjoy opera. Sung in English, Mozart‘s music is further immortalized by a handsome cast of excellent actors whose voices range from great to super, gorgeous sets and costumes and a supporting orchestra of high quality.

What are the roots of this local Renaissance that has changed the perception of “Grand Opera” into opera that just is grand? For one, from cavernous opera houses with stages that are remote from the audience, we now have smaller theaters with audience and actors in such close proximity that an intimacy is created that is impossible at the Metropolitan Opera House or Milan’s La Scala. At times performers even jump off of the stage into the audiences for their exits.

Second, the youth, beauty and vastly improved acting of the singers, has created a sense of reality that was once a stretch with the opera of my youth, which I once described as fat, over- dramatic and aging singers bumping bellies as they scream love songs at each other.

Third, is the development of supertitles flanking the stages with the English translations of the librettos, making all the action on the stage comprehensible.

West Bay’s “The Marriage of Figaro,” not only has all of this, but an excellent and understandable translation of the singing into English and another one of music director Davis Sloss’s excellent pit orchestras.

This production lifts one to a plateau of fun that doesn’t permit one to come back to earth until the final notes. The casting is perfect, with senses of humor and of the absurd that do great justice to the libretto of music history’s famous Lorenzo da Ponte. The only drawback that might be pointed out, is not of this production’s origin. Opera written for Eighteenth Century aristocratic audiences, who had much more time on their hands to fill leisure hours, grows a bit wearying for electronic-age audience. Three hours and then some, becomes a bit of a stretch today.

Handsome bass-baritone Jason Detwiler and beautiful soprano Alison Greene, are perfect as the worldly-wise would-be married couple, Figaro and Susanna, servants to the Count and Countess Almaviva. of Spain.

These, in turn, are equally perfect cast with a shrewd but repeatedly frustrated Count, by baritone Michael Taylor and an innocently naive Countess, Shana Blake-Hill, whose soaring soprano was one of the special thrills of the evening. Sonia Gariaeff almost steals the show in the male role of Cherubino, the slap-happy, testosterone-driven 14-year-old page to the Count who desires just about every female around. Her hapless Harpo Marx-style facial expressions are a wonder to behold. The plot, a non-sensical collection of fun confusion and misunderstanding, is almost secondary to the genius of Mozart’s great overture and melodies.

Soprano Sabrina Harris is 16-year-old Barbarina, Susanna's cousin, who is hankerin’ for randy Cherubino. Mezzo-soprano Karen Carle is the 42-year-old Marcellina, who in turn is hankerin’ to take Figaro away in marriage from Susanna, with the help of lawyer Bartolo, played by baritone Michael Morris.

Tenor Christopher Fernandez is the gossipy music master Basilio. Baritone Otak Jump is Antonio, Susanna’s uncle and gardener to the Count. And, tenor Dan Armistead rounds off the cast as Don Curzio, a judge.

Much credit is due to stage director David F. Ostwald for his dramatic direction and choreography on the limited stage area of the Lucie Stern Theatre. The set and costumes designed by Peter Crompton and Callie Floor are simply sumptuous, as is the whole production.

San Mateo Times Reviews

Updated April 5, 2002, by .