Opera Baltimore has been filling the opera void in Baltimore for 17 years this month. It has grown from its starting as Baltimore Live performance Opera to its current format of presenting each staged and live performance operas. Its live performance operas are held within the Engineers Membership in Mount Vernon. I first discovered of and wrote about Baltimore Live performance Opera in 2016 and attended my first opera there in 2017. I turned a fan. Opera Baltimore, particularly of their performances within the Engineers Membership, makes opera enjoyable – a pleasant, welcoming ambiance, palatial-in-appointments, a small-in-size live performance ballroom, drinks that may be consumed at your seats, and opera sung stay, just a few toes from the viewers! It’s a very particular expertise which explains why I’ve been attending and reporting on this firm’s performances ever since my first go to. My attendance for Wednesday evening’s glorious and enjoyable semi-staged efficiency of Donizetti’s Lucretia Borgia began with a particular feeling. I felt like I had been away for some time and was returning house.
Caitlin Crabill as Lucrezia Borgia. Photograph by Bart Debicki; courtesy of Opera Baltimore.
Composer Gaetano Donizetti and librettist Felice Romani’s Lucrezia Borgia premiered in 1833. The opera is produced a lot much less typically than Donizetti’s extra well-known bel canto operas, resembling Lucia di Lammermoor and L’elisir d’amore. I stored considering that Shakespeare will need to have impressed this opera – so many individuals die- however the story relies on an eponymous play by Victor Hugo. Past the truth that Lucrezia Borgia was an actual particular person in a strong household in the course of the Renaissance, the plots of the play and the opera are fiction and do the lady a disservice, simply because the movie “Amadeus” unjustly impugned Salieri. Historic information painting the true Lucrezia Borgia as a succesful administrator who turned a patron of the humanities. She turned a topic of controversy as a result of she was the illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI, and he was rumored to have engaged her in an incestuous relationship. Studies of her villainy as a assassin who favored poisons have been made as much as slander her and the household, after which turned fodder for sensational rumors and storytelling. Hugo’s play about love, honor, and karmic villainy gave Donizetti and Romani the thought for a dramatic opera exhibiting a personality able to each nice villainy and nice love. No massive deal at present, however then, it was scandalous, and the creators needed to joust with the censors.
Lucrezia (Caitlin Crabill) is confronted by Orsini (Megan Marino) as Gennaro (Hayden Smith) stands by. Photograph by Bart Debicki; courtesy of Opera Baltimore.
The plot is value relating, starting with the prologue: (spoilers now) a younger man, an honorable warrior captain named Gennaro, sleeps whereas his associates proceed to social gathering. A girl comes upon him who clearly has sturdy emotions for him. He awakes, and seeing her type face, feels a deep attachment to her. She doesn’t reveal who she is. His associates return and reveal she is the villainous, hated Lucretia Borgia. She leaves as Gennaro stands vexed. Act I: A couple of days later, again at her husband, the duke’s palace, she is demanding that he put to dying whoever had defaced the household identify on the palace, turning BORGIA into ORGIA, that means orgy in Italian. He, understanding of the time she has spent with the perpetrator and suspecting he’s a love curiosity, readily agrees. When she is instructed that the villain is Gennaro, she tries emphatically to retract her request, however the duke solely lets her select the strategy of execution (beginning to sound like “Recreation of Thrones”?). She chooses poison over the sword, however then secretly slips the younger man an antidote, telling him to flee, which he does. Act II: Gennaro’s younger associates have been partying in a palace room and Lucrezia had them served poisoned wine. She has the room sealed off and declares that 5 will die. Gennaro has additionally had the wine and steps ahead saying it is going to be six as he chooses to die along with his associates; he refuses her supply of the rest of the antidote. Lucrezia reveals to him she is his mom simply earlier than he dies and he accepts her embrace; then she dies, grief-stricken. But, for all its outrageousness, I loved this opera. Shakespeare would have been proud, and Turandot would have claimed a sister. My son as soon as instructed me that, solely in opera can we get love tales about mass murderers. Or in trendy terminology, it’s sophisticated.
Lucrezia (Caitlin Crabill) pleads together with her husband, the duke (Samuel Weiser), for Gennaro’s life. Photograph by Bart Debicki; courtesy of Opera Baltimore.
The story advantages significantly from Donizetti being on the peak of his artistic powers. Lucrezia got here after L’elisir D’amore and earlier than Lucia di Lammermoor. It incorporates his stunning melodies and lovely bel canto vocals, and appearing challenged by the tense drama introduced. For this live performance model, the singing was accompanied by piano performed expertly by pianist and conductor Husan Chun-Novak. The semi-staging, primarily directing interactions by the characters and including a couple of props, was properly conceived by stage director and dramaturg Mary Elizabeth Williams. For live performance opera, the plot’s visible cues from the setting and motion are omitted, so I learn the synopsis earlier than attending; the main points within the story may be higher made when absolutely acted, and I missed some on this efficiency, resembling whether or not the ending of Lucrezia’s life foretold in her ending vocal was actual or metaphorical.
Lucrezia (Caitlin Crabill) reveals the reality to Gennaro (Hayden Smith). Photograph by Bart Debicki; courtesy of Opera Baltimore.
Whether or not the message of human complexity, that even a villain could be a loving mom, is healthier served by absolutely staged or live performance opera, let’s needless to say the main focus of live performance opera is the voice. Relieved of detailed appearing wants, the singers can focus extra on their vocals, although within the semi-staged variations, they sing from reminiscence with out the rating on stands in entrance of them. Right here is a component of the enjoyable half offered by Opera Baltimore: the singing was actually good! For Lucrezia, there are 4 principal roles, and OB stuffed them with 4 glorious singers. The position of Lucretia is taken into account a star car for a soprano, and OB’s alternative soprano, Caitlin Crabill, didn’t disappoint. She is an completed younger artist whose trajectory is ascending; she has already appeared with a number of regional opera firms, together with a task in OB’s Maria Stuarda final yr. Her method to the position emphasised the dramatic and emotional richness of her singing somewhat than frequent bel canto gildings. One in all her arias close to the tip displayed probably the most fireworks vocally, and he or she delivered it fantastically. It was an affecting efficiency general.
Conductor and Pianist Husan Chun-Novak. Photograph by Bart Debicki; courtesy of Opera Baltimore.
Gennaro was performed by tenor Hayden Smith. The standard of his voice pleasantly shocked me. He was a Studio Artist with Wolf Lure Opera and has appeared in a number of regional productions up to now. He gave a efficiency that was pleasing all through, with passionate singing and a compelling portrayal of Lucrezia’s perplexed son. Samuel Weiser, who sang the position of the duke, has been praised for his stentorian bass-baritone voice, together with by me, for his portrayal of Leporello in final season’s Don Giovanni from Annapolis Opera; he additionally spent three seasons as a Cafritz Younger Artist with Washington Nationwide Opera. He sang properly and gave us a regally assured duke imposing his punishment on his spouse. The singer who sang the position of Orsini, Gennaro’s closest buddy and ally, a pants position was mezzo-soprano Megan Marino. Once more, it was a sit-up-and-take-notice efficiency from her entrance down the aisle, singing all the way in which. Her singing and the standard of her voice have been spectacular. I took particular notice of the smoothness of her singing in her decrease register. Her portrayal was so convincing it took me a couple of minutes to determine if the lengthy hair was signaling a feminine within the position.
A solid photograph within the royal live performance ballroom of the Engineers Membership. Photograph by Bart Debicki; courtesy of Opera Baltimore.
Opera Baltimore’s group of principal performers was remarkably gifted. They have been aided and abetted by a gifted supporting solid, together with Zinnia Frank, Timothy Kjer, Norwood Robinson, Benjamin Ross, and Peter Juengs, who all added to the standard of the efficiency, particularly the pleasing vocals. The opera additionally benefited noticeably from a fifteen-member refrain that sang fantastically.
My backside line – This efficiency was lifted by extraordinary singers. I appreciated it and would take pleasure in seeing and listening to this efficiency once more. I’m now additionally serious about seeing a completely staged model of Lucrezia Borgia, which had little curiosity for me earlier than Wednesday evening. Opera Baltimore desires their live performance opera performances to be a gateway drug.
Opera Baltimore’s President and Common Director Julia Cooke. Photograph by Bart Debicki; courtesy of Opera Baltimore.
Baltimore Opera’s backside line, from President and Common Director Julia Cooke in her program notes: “To collect for stay music, to decide on magnificence and emotional honesty, shouldn’t be indulgence: it’s affirmation.”
The Fan Expertise: Performances of Lucrezia Borgia have been scheduled for March 4, 6, and eight within the Engineers Membership. The opera was sung in Italian with supertitles proven on a display screen overhead. The opera lasted about an two hours and a half, together with a fifteen-minute intermission.
Dr. Aaron Ziegel, OB’s Scholar-in-Residence, supplies a pre-opera discuss one hour earlier than every efficiency. He additionally supplies three or 4 one-hour, extremely informative Zoom courses referred to as Opera Perception for ticket holders on every upcoming opera, that are later posted on YouTube. These not solely talk about the opera to be introduced but in addition supply a deeper dive into opera itself. Within the collection for Lucrezia Borgia, I particularly loved listening to his rationalization of Donizetti’s use of double arias.
Opera Baltimore has another opera this season, one other live performance opera within the Engineers Membership. Pelléas et Mélisande is scheduled for April 22, 24, and 26. Their web site, operabaltimore.org, could be very detailed with helpful data for planning your go to, together with parking choices. The open bar serves quite a lot of beers and cocktails, which may be taken into the theater. I don’t often have alcoholic drinks when attending operas I’ll report on, however for this opera, I’d have really useful they provide a cocktail named Toxic Wine.
Additionally on the web site, try the massive vary of neighborhood outreach applications that OB presents for Baltimore and the massive variety of different opera-related choices, resembling Thirsty Thursdays. A comparatively new program that caught my eye was their Technology Opera program, whereby you sponsor a scholar to attend an opera, and they are going to be seated subsequent to you on the efficiency.
