Article: Summer Season 2008"Summer of Romance"Princeton Packet (Anthony Stoeckert) Falling in love with an unattainable being - and all the ensuing complications - is what it’s about in Opera New Jersey’s offerings this season. For Opera New Jersey, 2008 is the summer of love. From Verdi’s tragic romance La Traviata to Franz Lehar’s comic operetta The Merry Widow and Gioachino Rossini’s family-friendly fantasy La Cenerentola (Cinderella), the opera company will be singing about affairs of the heart at McCarter Theatre July 11 through 27. The variety of shows is designed to satisfy different tastes and to entice new audiences to spend a night (or more) at the opera. ”Each person likes different things, just like movies,” says bass Matthew Lau, who’s playing Don Magnificito in La Cenerentola. “Some people like to see summer action movies, some people like tearjerker movies, some like date movies, and we have something for everybody.” Mr. Lau has experience with his role as Cinderella’s stepfather, and has performed it many times in front of children, who enjoy the show because of their familiarity with the story. There are some differences in Rossini’s version, starting with a stepfather replacing the traditional stepmother. Other variations are a bracelet instead of a glass slipper, a fairy grandfather (as opposed to a fairy godmother) and the prince changing places with his valet so that he can find a wife who will love him and not his royalty. Mezzo-soprano Leah Wool, who’s performed with the Metropolitan Opera, will play Cinderella. Though he’s playing one of the story’s villains, Mr. Lau says his character provides more laughs than scares. He says many of his roles are of the “basso buffo” type, meaning they’re comic even while doing their wicked deeds. ”They’re funny guys,” he says of his characters. “What is asked of me musically in arias like this often is very fast patter singing. There’s a lot of running around, a lot of words... and furthering the plot of the story. It’s a very interesting choice to cast an evil person as a fun person. It’s something people aren’t expecting and because of that, it’s lots of fun.” La Traviata is quite something else. Verdi’s opera, based on Alexandre Dumas’ La Dame aux Camelias, tells the story of Violetta, a courtesan in mid-19th century Paris recently diagnosed with consumption. During a party she is told that Alfredo has loved her from afar for years, which helps her realize she’s in a loveless relationship with Baron Douphol. ”She is owned by him pretty much,” says baritone Jonathan Stinson of his character Douphol. “So she starts falling in love with Alfredo who actually loves her; my character doesn’t really love her, he just possesses her. I’m kind of the bad guy of the opera, I treat her pretty poorly and drive her to Alfredo.” Tenor Michael Fabiano is playing Alfredo. Mr. Fabiano has performed with the famed La Scala opera house in Milan, Italy, and was in Opera New Jersey’s 2006 staging of L’Elisir d’Amore. Soprano Elizabeth Caballero is singing Violetta. Mr. Stinson says the show wastes no time in pointing out how nasty Douphol is to Violetta. ”She is terminally ill and he’s paying a doctor to look over her and to cure her and she’s not getting better,” he says. “He of course blames the doctor but also blames her for not being well. From the very first scene, you see that while everyone else is caring for her, he is actually frustrated with her.” The love triangle starts to take hold during La Traviata’s most famous piece of music, “Libiamo ne’lieti calici,” also known as “The Drinking Song.” ”That’s the first time that I notice Alfredo is a threat,” Mr. Stinson says. “He’s toasting and talking about love and is directing half of it directly toward Violetta. So I’m the only one in the entire scene not drinking. Everyone is toasting and I’m sitting in my chair fuming.” The song is primarily a duet between Alfredo and Violetta, but the whole company joins in at times and Mr. Stinson says singing it is a fun part of being in La Traviata. ”Not just because it’s great music but because of the history behind it and because it’s such a world-famous piece,” he says. “Opera in Italy 200 years ago was just musical theater... People would be sitting in the streets singing that theme.” Mr. Stinson, who’s also the understudy for the role of Dandini in La Cenerentola, is making his second appearance with Opera New Jersey. In 2006 he had a small role in Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi,” in which he had about 10 minutes of stage time. Last year, he was offered a part in Romeo and Juliet but couldn’t do it because of a prior commitment. ”I’m very happy that I’m back here because it was a hard decision not to come back (last year) because I love the company so much,” he says. This year’s operetta is Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow. The English-language adaptation follows Hanna and Count Danilo Danilovitsch, former lovers whose romance was thwarted by Danilo’s uncle because Hanna was poor. As the Paris-set show opens, Hanna is a wealthy widow about to re-marry and abandon her (fictional) nation of Pontevedro. Pontevedro’s Grand Duke wants Danilo to marry her and save the country from a financial crisis. Baritone Brian Jagde, who plays Danilo, says The Merry Widow is a fun show with lots of humorous bickering between Hanna and Danilo. He’s angry at her for marrying someone else, she blames him for their engagement ending. ”We’re kind of pushing and pulling at the same time because we love each other still,” Mr. Jagde says. He adds that for performers, operetta and opera differ in several ways, particularly because of the amount of dialogue featured in operettas. ”Because of that you have to approach it differently as an opera singer because when you speak you’re not usually speaking the same way that you’re singing,” he says. “So there’s lots of things to think about when you do that.” There’s more to opera than singing. Mr. Jagde says acting is a big part of what opera singers do, so he’s putting a lot of thought into his character. ”My approach to Danilo is he’s kind of withered to basically nothing,” he says. “He’s this figurehead for his country but he doesn’t want to be. He drinks a lot and is kind of wasting his time trying to push the memory of this lost love behind him.” Mr. Jagde says director Marc Verzalt wants the dialogue to help define the characters and to allow scenes to play out naturally. ”I think in this show, acting is extremely important,” he says. “I think it’s important in every show... You have to be (able to act) to really portray these roles, they’re really complicated, believe it or not. Most people don’t know that... The characters in opera are actually extremely complicated just like we are in our daily lives. Some of the things that we do in the operas are things we all do, even if they’re a little astronomical at times. But the things we do in opera are falling in love with somebody we can’t have, people do that all the time.” Return to the Reviews and Articles page.
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