Making virtues of limitations is a West Bay Opera specialty, a skill set that much larger organizations have also had to embrace in recent years. In such circumstances, Vincenzo Bellini’s La sonnambula (The sleepwalker) is a perfect opera, one that showed the company off to best advantage in a performance at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto on Saturday, Feb. 21.

La sonnambula is modest in everything except, of course, the demands Bellini’s music makes on the three lead singers, who at the 1831 premiere included two of Italy’s biggest names (Giuditta Pasta and Giovanni Battista Rubini). If you don’t know the plot, it’s a conventional love triangle set in a Swiss village. The protagonist Amina sleepwalks into the bedroom of the local count, who’s staying at the village inn. Complications ensue, and the climax is reached when the villagers and Amina’s fiancé, Elvino, watch her sleepwalk across a bridge over the mill race.

Michelle Allie Drever starred as Amina

Soprano Michelle Allie Drever, in her role debut as Amina, has the coloratura goods, save for a more natural trill. She’s a good musician who bound melodic ornamentation into the longer line without rushing or gliding over many individual notes. Her voice has presence, and she showed evenness throughout her range, a huge asset in this role. That alone would be enough to star in this production, but Drever also sang the opera’s big number, “Ah! non credea mirarti” (I hadn’t thought I’d see you), with immense feeling. She indicated too much, particularly with her facial expressions, but considering this is a show built around old-style pantomime, that was hardly a serious flaw.

Her Elvino, tenor Chris Mosz, was making his WBO debut, having recently wowed audiences as Tonio in Livermore Valley Opera’s The Daughter of the Regiment. He is also well equipped to handle this tough role. Mosz’s voice is large, if a little nasal in quality, but he handled the runs and ornamentation in his part delicately. He mixed his head and chest voice in the highest notes, almost a necessity in this repertoire, allowing him to preserve the longer line and come down from the heights gracefully. He was an energetic lover who matched well with Drever: They seemed to have chemistry.

The redoubtable Shawnette Sulker took the role of Lisa, Amina’s rival. Sulker is an excellent actor and conveyed the role’s mix of comedy and seriousness. While her topmost notes were shrill, everything else about her singing was superior.

In the smaller roles, West Bay debutante Courtney Miller, playing Amina’s adoptive mother, was excellent, both in singing and acting, and Casey Germain, as Count Rodolfo, was stiff but likeable. He sings steadily and evenly and has quite a nice voice. Michael Orlinsky, as the disappointed Alessio, was funny and perfectly adequate for his role.

The chorus, directed by Bruce Olstad, hung together and demonstrated particularly great diction; you could hear every word. José Luis Moscovich conducted a tight performance, and the orchestra, not overwhelmed by the score’s demands, breathed with the singers and lent them strong support. As always, the production elements by the WBO team (set and projection designer Peter Crompton, costume designer Callie Floor, and lighting designer Danielle Ferguson) were well thought-out for the space. This was a fine show and well worth the drive from Berkeley.

Michael Zwiebach is the senior editor/content manager for SFCV. He assigns all articles and content, manages the writing staff, and does editing. A member of SFCV from the beginning, Michael holds a Ph.D. in music history from the University of California, Berkeley.

https://www.sfcv.org/articles/review/west-bay-operas-la-sonnambula-showcases-companys-many-virtues

Review: Don’t sleep on West Bay Opera’s ‘La sonnambula’

Company stages an impressive production of Bellini’s demanding melodrama

by Michael J. Vaughn

February 20, 2025 4:36 pm

If you should be strolling near Lucie Stern Theatre and detect the fragrance of lemon meringue in the air, that would be the vocal confections that West Bay Opera is spinning with its production of Bellini’s “La sonnambula.” In its day, this sleep-walking melodrama was almost as popular as Bellini’s better-known “Norma,” but these days it’s rarely produced, so it’s quite an opportunity.

The bel canto style — lighter and more agile than Verdi and Puccini — is introduced by soprano Shawnette Sulker as Lisa, a mountain village innkeeper who has just lost the battle for landowner Elvino to an orphan girl, Amina. In her cavatina (introductory aria), “Tutto e gioia, tutto e festa,” she spells out this disappointment with a tremendous plasticity of tone, and a top note so thrilling that it elicited gasps.

And this is just the secondary soprano! When Michelle Allie Drever enters as the victorious Amina, she unleashes the two-part “Come per me sereno/Sovra il sen la man mi posa,” originally written for the legendary Giuditta Pasta and a staple of recitals to this day. Drever handles this task with aplomb, displaying a sense of dynamic control in her cadenzas (notably her sparkling high pianissimos) that will continue throughout the evening.

When the very popular Elvino shows up for his betrothal ceremony, we’re in for another surprise. Chris Mosz’s tenor is so high-set that it seems like he is singing downward on notes above the staff. This serves him well later, as Elvino is destined to suffer much grief and betrayal. I liked him best, however, in “Son geloso del zeffiro errante,” a delicate duet of forgiveness in which he and Drever travel long a capella passages together. There’s something absolutely magical about two singers leading each other through such intimate spaces (and then, once the orchestra rejoins, coming out on key). It is quite a daredevil feat.

Providing a solid foundation for all these gymnastics are mezzo Courtney Miller as Amina’s foster mother Teresa and bass Casey Germain as Count Rodolfo. Miller’s mezzo is beautifully even and pure. Germain’s bass is rich and noble, and he gives the Count a regal bearing (a nobleman who actually turns out to be noble). The Count’s presence was also helped by a richly embroidered housecoat (Callie Floor, costume designer).

All this super-lyric vocalizing demands careful listening from the audience, but Jose Luis Moscovich does an excellent job of reining in his modest orchestra. The chorus plays an important part in the opera, too, and they come through ably, although I wish the stage direction contained more movement.

Peter Crompton and Frederic O. Boulay continue to refine their set/projection fusion, creating a beautifully animated waterfall. When the villagers sing of the local phantom, a piece of said waterfall breaks away and turns into the silhouette of a dancing woman. It’s an incredibly striking image.

Felice Romani’s libretto contains a few troubling notes. Essentially, Amina sleepwalks her way into the Count’s room at the inn and is found there on the morning of her wedding, leading to all sorts of scandal. This is misguided, but certainly understandable. But why is poor Lisa held to such scorn when she is discovered to have (gasp!) flirted with one of her customers? Silliness, but that’s the 18th century for ya.

Of special interest to the opera aficionado is the similarity of Amina’s final sleepwalking scene to the mad scene in Lucia di Lammermoor (which premiered four years later, in 1835). In both, the gathering stands frozen around the soprano as she pours out her grief in an altered state. Mad scenes were quite the rage at the time, and this one provides the ability to pull it off without insanity or blood. In any case, Drever does a magnificent job of singing as if hypnotized, then wakes to perform the joyous cabaletta “Ah! Non giunge uman pensiero.” Among other qualities, I enjoy the delight that Drever clearly takes in the act of singing.

Feb. 22, 7 p.m. and Feb. 23, 2 p.m., at the Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. $46-$125. In Italian with English supertitles. wbopera.org.

https://www.paloaltoonline.com/ae/2025/02/20/review-dont-sleep-on-west-bay-operas-la-sonnambula/

WEST BAY OPERA Presents La sonnambula

February 19, 2025 Barbara Keer Music & Arts 0

La sonnambula by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani premiered at Teatro Carcano, Milan, March 6, 1831 and first performed at the West Bay Opera on February 14th, 2025. Considered by many to be Bellini’s most beautiful score, La sonnambula was written at a time when stage works involving somnambulism (sleepwalking) where all the rage in Paris.  This opera drew me to Palo Alto for the first time in many years. Experiencing The West Bay Opera remains very special; intimate, welcoming, and captivating. The exquisite voices, remarkable projections, appropriate costumes, and live orchestra led by Stage Director/Conductor Jose Luis Moscovich, were outstanding and will be remembered a long time.  This production was also special because it was dedicated to the “loving memory of Balbin Heitner Moscovich, volunteer, friend and supporter of the company.” You can still see this opera on February 22 or 23rd at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto, CA. Don’t miss it!

This fully staged production of Bellini’s bel canto masterpiece La sonnambula is the story of a young woman who walks in her sleep, a story that requires suspending belief for the joy of hearing some of the most beautiful music in opera. In a middle-European country village, people are nervous about a ghost that walks near the waterwheel after dark. The ghost is actually Amina (Michelle Allie Drever), a sleepwalking young woman, orphaned and raised by Teresa (mezzo soprano Courtney Miller), one of the village women. Somehow, Amina manages to sleepwalk into the Count Rodolfo’s (bass Casey Germain) room at the local inn, where he’s spending the night on his way to the castle. Amina is found by villagers, asleep on the couch in the Count’s room. The villagers lament their “perfect” young woman now disgraced. Although the Count clearly states there are people who seem to be awake although they are actually sleeping, no one believes him.  Would you?  I believed him, my sister sleepwalked. Elvino (tenor Chris Mosz), her fiancé, is outraged and cancels plans for a wedding the next day. Lisa (Shawnette Sulker, mezzo soprano), the innkeeper with designs on Elvino sees this as an opportunity to win him back. The cast also includes baritone Michael Orlisnky as Alessio, and tenor Arthur Wu as the notary.

The audience is treated to some of the most sublime music of the period.  It is rare to have not only one, but two sopranos in the same opera, – dueling sopranos?  Exquisite, dramatic voices.  The arias, duets, and larger ensembles and the choral singing, transport the listener to a far away, magical place. 

Inspired by fairy tale illustrations by Bohemian artist Artuš Scheiner; Peter Crompton created perfect sets, but the projected images were enveloping- clouds that moved in a blue sky, autumn trees with falling leaves, a waterwheel with a bridge that crossed the river carried me far away. Completing the look and feel of the story were the costumes by Callie Floor. The lighting design by Danielle Ferguson, props design by Shirley Benson, and sound design by Giselle Lee, completed the fairy tale feeling. Sung in Italian, with projected English transcription, this production takes the viewer away from our current issues and provides us with a very rewarding respite.

https://splashmags.com/index.php/2025/02/west-bay-opera-presents-la-sonnambula/

La sonnambula

February 16, 2025 Victor Cordell

A concise definition of bel canto opera eludes aficionados, but its composers have been identified ex post facto, and one of the foremost was Vincenzo Bellini.  Despite his brief life of 34 years, several of his operas remain in the repertoire.  Among them is the 1831 pastoral opera La sonnambula, given a fine production by West Bay Opera.

The narrative is simple.  Amina, a young woman who is a treasure of a town that could be anywhere, is to marry Elvino.  The night before the ceremony, she is seen at the lodgings of a visiting Count.  While the opera goer realizes that she sleepwalks innocently and believes that she is in the company of her betrothed, the townspeople are not aware of her condition and turn on Amina as a result of the scandal.  Incredulous and callous Elvino returns to his past love, Lisa. Ultimately, the Count absolves Amina and the wedding is back on.  The end.

Courtney Miller as Teresa, Shawnette Sulker as Lisa, Casey Germain as Count Rodolfo, Chris Mosz as Elvino, Michelle Drever as Amina.

La sonnambula brims with melodious music that is delivered by a cast with outstanding voices.  Those voices are mightily challenged as Bellini composed for a particular soprano who had an especially mellifluous head voice, and she was surrounded by others with acrobatic vocal skills.  Not only is the overall tessitura of the three key roles unusually high, but artists are required to hit the high notes, often high D’s cold without a run up.

Coloratura soprano Michelle Drever portrays Amina and nails the part with precision, clarity, and a rich tone throughout her range.  Shawnette Sulker performs Lisa, the innkeeper and Amina’s competition for Elvino’s heart.  Shawnette’s surname couldn’t be more apt, as she spends much of the opera sulking over her losing Elvino.  But her vocals are the equal of Drever’s as she too masters the heights of the soprano range.  Each sings with considerable but controlled vibrato and embellishes beautifully in the bel canto manner.

The love interest in this triangle is Elvino, sung by Chris Mosz, who possesses a brilliant and uniquely eerie timbre virtually unique to select operatic tenors.  Having sung Tonio in La Fille du Regiment with its eight high C’s multiple times, he certainly suits this part which demands that he enter the stage for his first aria on a high note.  Mezzo Courtney Miller as Teresa, Amina’s mother, and Casey Germain as Count Rodolfo also deserve recognition for fine singing and acting.

A bit of a surprise is the chorus.  Mostly comprised of veterans with the company, this performance stands out as the best that this reviewer and other confidants can remember.  Whether singing pizzicato and sounding like a score of bass violins being plucked, or wafting harmoniously in full voice, they make a difference.  Kudos to Chorus Master Bruce Olstad and Director/Conductor José Luis Moscovich who also coordinates orchestra and chorus to produce the big, beautiful sound that belies their numbers.

The opera itself was a great hit with critics, audience, and fellow composers alike upon its premiere.  However, tastes and audience demands change over time.  One deficiency by today’s standards is that until the critical juncture arrives toward the end of the long first act, the action is very static with little dramatic impact.  Arias typically make operas memorable, but until the sleepwalking scene, one aria after another contains pleasant melody, but nothing hummable or declamatory, and very little interactive.  

Amina’s sleepwalk along with her claim of innocence in her aria ‘D’un pensiero e d’un accento’ that lead to the rousing, complex act-ending ensemble, a structural fixture of the time, largely redeem Act 1.

Act 2 is comprised of five short scenes that move quickly and provide the highlight of the opera.  Amina reprises her sleepwalk.  This time, before reaching the townsfolk assembled, she must negotiate a dangerous ledge across the mill stream.  Designer Peter Crompton’s projections of cascading water behind the vulnerable Amina creates a strong dramatic effect.  Her ensuing “mad scene,” which includes ‘Ah, non credea mirarti,’ her ode to dying flowers from Elvino, is composed and performed exquisitely.

This opera is an important piece of Bellini’s output and has much to recommend it.  La sonnambula influences other opera composers, and it was parodied or reflected in works as varied as Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas and George Eliot’s novel The Mill on the Floss.

Costume designs by Callie Floor.

La sonnambula, composed by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani, is produced by West Bay Opera and performed at Lucy Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, CA through February 23, 2025.

 https://cordellreports.com/2025/02/16/la-sonnambula/

La sonnambula

February 15, 2025 by Eddie Reynolds

Vincenzo Bellini, Composer; Felice Romani, Libretto

West Bay Opera

In the early nineteenth century for some strange reason, the height of fashion in European stage works was to include somnambulism, or sleepwalking.  With Felice Romani contributing the libretto, Vincenzo Bellini followed the popular trend by premiering in 1831 a two-act opera in the bel canto style entitled La sonnambula, one based on a popular, French ballet-pantomime.

West Bay Opera opens a big-sounding, stage-filling La sonnambula with a cast of principals who overall conquer triumphantly the range challenges the composer has given them, with a chorus that reigns supreme in melodic harmonies, and an orchestra that delivers Bellini’s score with both subtlety when accompanying arias and grandeur when blossoming into full sound.

Peter Crompton’s set and projection designs beautifully and resplendently establish the scene of a small Italian village surrounded by golden, autumn foliage and positioned next to the massive water wheel of the town’s mill.  The town is all abustle over the marriage about to take place between the mill owner’s adopted daughter, Amina, and a local farmer/landowner, Elvino.  Everyone is delighted with the match except innkeeper, Lisa, who was once betrothed to Elvino before being dropped for Amina. 

Just as the marriage contract is signed and a ring is on Amina’s finger, a noble stranger arrives, whom the townspeople soon surmise is the long-lost son of the now-dead lord of a nearby castle.  Count Rodolfo causes quite a stir, especially when he quite obviously flirts with the bride-to-be and she seemingly responds, flattered — all to the growing jealous reaction of the groom.  

As shadows creep in the forest, the Count is encouraged to spend the night to avoid the white-draped phantom whom all declare often haunts the nearby woods and paths, a woman most ghastly.  The Count is amused but not convinced; however, he does retire to a room in Lisa’s inn.

To his surprise, during the night, in walks through the window a pale-skinned woman all in white.  He soon realizes that it is a sleep-walking Amina, who sings in her sleep about her love of Elvino.  As the Count readies to leave the room being careful not to wake her, Lisa comes in to check on the Count and sees Amina in a night gown in his room.

And thus sets up the high-spirited drama to come as she quickly informs the entire town — of course including her beloved and once-betrothed Elvino — of the scandalous situation.  That Amina is only sleepwalking and is in fact the oft-supposed town ghost does not cross her or anyone else’s mind as guilt of the bride’s betrayal is at once assumed.

From the opening moments when Michelle Allie Drever sings of Amina’s gratitude to the townspeople for their best wishes for her upcoming nuptials through her expressions of love for Elvino and then on to her pleading of innocence after being discovered sleeping in the Count’s bedroom, her soprano voice rings with much vibrato with notes often quivering in their trills as she delivers in full bel canto style. 

As magnificently as she sings with power often reaching and sustaining notes steps above high-C, there are times when the warbling of her notes become a bit much, especially when accompanied by a tendency to overact, to flail outstretched hands, and to use facial expressions like one might have once seen in silent movie close-ups.  

However as the opera progresses, her Amina’s vocals relax to more natural tones to permit her profound voice to shine forth unencumbered with overdone trembles. That is particularly true whenever in duet with Elvino when their voices intertwine in close harmony as in the a cappella duo they sing as they sign the marriage contract of their love, intoning “since the day a god united our hands.”

Further, when delivering the opera’s most famous aria — that of the sleepwalker in the climax of Act II — Michelle Allie Drever’s ghostly Ariana sings with less flowery, more restrained tones and with much more striking, genuine emotions of the grief and sadness the sleeping Ariana is feeling about the love she has lost of Elvino.

For his part, Chris Mosz time and again does not fail to impress with a tenor voice that floats with ease through increasing scales to land on clear, sustained notes in upper ranges as his Elvino declares his love, then his rejection, and finally his love again of Amina.  

As both actor and singer, Chris Mosz’s skills prove to have just the right touches to make each appearance on the stage compelling and memorable.

The expressive purity and depth of Casey Germain’s bass also leaves a lasting impression as he sings with pleasant, wholesome tones the role of Count Rodolfo.  

His Count is definitely on the cusp of being a brute as he so boldly flirts with the bride-to-be upon his arrival to the village, but he quickly becomes much more noble as the one person beyond her own mother who steps in to declare Amina’s innocence to a still-disbelieving Elvino.  

Courtney Miller & Michelle Allie Drever

The defending mother, Teresa, looks squarely with indignation and near disgust in the faces of the entire, accusing town and pushes up against the offending Elvino as Courtney Miller also wonderfully sings in resounding, rich mezzo soprano her belief of her daughter’s innocence.

 In the first act’s final scene after the entire village has arrived to see Amina sleeping in the Count’s bedroom, her Teresa joins the shocked and innocent Amina, the angered Elvino, the now-hopeful Lisa, and the entire turn-coat town in one of the evening’s most powerful, superbly staged and delivered numbers as each and all express their emotional reaction to the surprise discovery.

From a sheer perspective of acting prowess, Shawnette Sulker is the star of the night in her role as the pouting, plotting Lisa.  Often from the silent sidelines, Lisa’s facial and body stance reactions are worth the price of the ticket.  During declarations of love by Amina and Elvino, the arrival of the handsome Count, the reactions of Elvino as he turns against Amina, and then of the town’s and Elvino’s realization of Amina’s innocent, sleepwalking proof of Lisa’s own accusation — through each step of the story, it is well worth more than just an occasional glance to catch what is going on in Lisa’s head as becomes so evident visibly.  

But more important, Shawnette Sulker also sings with a soprano excellence that proves its mettle over and again, hitting top notes with sustained swellings that swoon in beauty.  She particularly wows us all when Lisa expresses to the townspeople in a melodic stream of joyful notes and in held tones of high soprano her delight that she is now going once again to be Elvino’s bride (or so she believes).

Adding to the joy of the evening are the twenty or so voices of the chorus of villagers.  Their remarkable control of dynamics, their exacting separation of phrases when describing the town’s ghost, and their overall full sound of well-placed harmonies make each appearance welcomed and highly enjoyed.

Likewise, the twenty-plus orchestra under the direction of José Luis Moscovich deserves kudos for its own excellence, with particular stand-out moments when both high and low strings at times accompany soloists with background, plucked strings, often with also the serenade of Arthur Austin’s lovely clarinet.

Callie Floor’s attention-drawing costumes help provide distinct personalities to each of the many townspeople as well as to establish the nobility of the Count, the flirty nature of Lisa, and the haunting side of sleepwalking Amina.  David Gillam’s design of make-up and wigs provide many finishing touches, although maybe a bit too harshly in cosmetic treatment of the leading lady herself.

There are times when the two-hour, thirty-minute (plus intermission) evening does seem to drag a bit in its scenes and arias , and sometimes the actions of actors and even townspeople become a bit too cartoonish.

But overall, the strength of the voices, the chorus, and the orchestra ensure that West Bay Opera’s technically demanding, bel-canto showcasing La sonnambula is definitely a good reason to head to Palo Alto’s Lucie Stern Center where audiences have a rare chance to witness and enjoy grand opera in an intimate setting.

Rating: 3.5 E

La sonnambula continues February 16, 22, and 23, 2025 in a two-hour, thirty-minute production (plus intermission) in production by West Bay Opera at Lucie Stern Center, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto.  Tickets are available online at https://www.wbopera.org/ or in person/by phone at the box office Monday – Friday 1-5 p.m. at 221 Lambert Avenue, Palo Alto (650-424-9999).

Photo Credits: Otak Jump

Rating: 3.5 E

Tags: 3.5 E, opera, West Bay Opera

https://theatreeddys.com/2025/02/la-sonnambula-2.html