After intermission, quick movie clips have been proven from three earlier OL productions accompanied by amusing and charming commentary by Pascale Beaudin on the podium. The primary clip was from the 2020 manufacturing of Beethoven’s Leonore (1805), the fruits of OL’s formidable Leonore Undertaking, during which Ms. Beaudin performed Marcelline. Curiously, she additionally performed Marceline in OL’s manufacturing of Pierre Gaveaux’s Leonore, ou L’Amour du conjugal, an earlier opera model of the Leonore story. The following clip was from Ol’s 2014 Les Fêtes de L’Hymen et de L’Amour, ou Les Dieux d’Egypte (1747), a Rameau opera/ballet that enlisted three dance teams, the New York Baroque Dance Firm, Kalanidhi Dance, and the Sean Curran Firm. The ultimate clip was from OL’s 2020 The Blacksmith, a Nick Olcott/Ryan Brown American adaptation of the Le Maréchal ferrant (1760), a French opéra comique by François-André Danican Philidor. Staging a comedic opera, outdoor, with seating on spaced bales of hay, beside a barn, on a ranch, in Colorado, with a movie made for public viewing, was Opera Lafayette’s method of spitting in COVID’s eye and elevating everybody’s spirits, to not point out protecting just a few musicians and singers employed. In his program notes, Director Brown states about OL productions, “…perfection shouldn’t be the purpose. Fortunately, we have sought expression and discovery.” Do you want any extra proof? Okay, yet another: not solely did OL unearth buried treasures, however offered them in artistic methods; check out the outrageous Machine Dazzles’s costumes in my weblog report on their 2023 efficiency of Io by Rameau at this hyperlink.
On the finish of the clips, Ryan Brown got here out to the rostrum with Patrick Quigley to introduce Mr. Quigley because the incoming Creative Director and Conductor and mentioned it appeared like time for some Mozart.
Conductor Quigley then directed the orchestra in performing Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate (1773) with the vocal by Paulina Francisco. At first, I discovered myself involuntarily rejecting Conductor Quigley’s presence in entrance of the orchestra. This occasion felt private. In a method that’s exhausting to clarify, I really feel through the years I’ve gotten greater than leisure from OL below Director Brown’s management, perhaps sustenance of some variety, maybe persevering with proof that the world is an efficient place to be. Nevertheless, he couldn’t have executed Conductor Quigley a greater favor than introduce him main that night’s orchestra, accompanying that soprano’s singing. Ms. Francisco and the orchestra carried out the piece with such inspirational magnificence, I got here round to at the least not rejecting Mr. Quigley.
Conductor Brown returned for the final choice, the “O doux second” Trio from Antonio Maria Gasparo Gioacchino Sacchini’s Oedipe à Colone (1786, carried out by OL in 2004) sung superbly by Paulina Francisco, James Reese, and John Taylor Ward. Exiting Creative Director Brown mentioned that the piece known as for a lifetime of love and advantage, and he wished to finish with that, and a befitting ending it was.
