OPERA NEWS, September, 1993
BOSTON
Striding out of the provincial into the regional arena, Boston Lyric Opera continued its venture of staging one American opera per season, hiring Carlisle Floyd to direct Wuthering Heights, his second opera (1958) and only work not on an American theme. Floyd constructs his pieces well, blending musical and theatrical moods. The three-act opera, for which he also wrote the libretto, proved to be relentlessly but monotonously tense, prettily predictable, melodic without being memorable, intermittently powerful but without the tempestuousness of Brontë's novel. Floyd's direction moved everyone around as well as possible, considering that Clarke Dunham's turntable set did not allow for much maneuverability on the Emerson Majestic Theatre's small stage. Two large, awkward staircases, on either side of the two interior sets, led to the moors -- represented by projections, but Dunham's lighting could not evoke their mystery.
The key role belongs to Cathy, who is onstage for most of the opera. At the final performance (March 16), Joan Gibbons was committed as the willful, undisciplined heroine, determined in her pursuit of Heathcliff without showing her reasons for it. High notes were in place in her second-act aria, a concert piece from which the opera was developed. Baritone Jeff Mattsey sang well, enacting Heathcliff's gentlemanly incarnation better than he did the brooding, doomed hero. Phyllis Pancella as nosy Nelly was a standout, her rich, warm mezzo a joy; tenor Gary Lehman depicted Hindley's appalling degeneracy perfectly, and Amy Burton sang the hapless Isabella sweetly. The chorus was in good voice in its single scene, and Stephen Lord's conducting never lacked conviction. JEFFREY C. SMITH
HARTFORD
The Aetna Theater at the Wadsworth Atheneum saw the world premiere of The World Is Round by James Sellars (seen April 24). Its libretto was adapted by Juanita Rockwell from the book by Gertrude Stein, whose Four Saints in Three Acts with Virgil Thomson opened at the same theater (then called the Avery) in 1934. Stein's 1939 children's book is about Rose ("is a rose is a rose..."), who learns of the world, triumphs over it and finds her identity. The playful, rhythmic language (thanks to the cast's crystalline diction, few words were lost) invites musical setting. Scored for an orchestra of twelve and five singers, who play over a dozen characters, and whose lines Sellars knits together with sparkling counterpoint, the work found an ideal venue in the small theater and a committed realization by Company One Theater.
Though the composer lists numerous influences and devices in the program notes, the piece is no pastiche; all elements are assimilated in his own style. Melodic invention, textural clarity and an apt sense of color are among Sellars' gifts. A witty trio for owls, finely spun tension as Rose begins her climb up a mountain toward self-realization and a haunting, murmuring finale stand out in the memory.
The cast seemed steeped in this opera's world. Under Rockwell's stylized direction, they moved and sang together affectingly. Ginnielynne Meader presided with cool irony as the Moon, while Karen Holvik made a gentle Rose. Jeanne Moniz, Steven Goldstein and Jonathan Hays sang the rest of the parts with style and commitment. Sarah Edkins' sets played with cutouts, ladders and silhouettes to evoke a child's horizons. Priscilla Putnam costumed the singers in sporty white outfits to echo the cool detachment that coexists with the opera's passions. Kyle Swann conducted with a sure hand. GILBERT H. MOTT
NEW HAVEN
Soprano Maureen O'Flynn gave one of the most exciting performances on a Connecticut stage in recent years -- in the title role of Shubert Opera's Lucia di Lammermoor (seen April 4). The young American combined presence with flawless tone in her affecting portrayal. Coloratura passages sounded effortless, and there was a dramatic yet unforced quality throughout her range. Her mad scene was truly chilling as she darted between reverie and horror.
The worthy supporting cast was led by James Dietsch's authoritative Enrico. His Act II duet with Lucia was another highlight, with its vocal blending and dramatic tension. One could almost see the plotting going on inside this Enrico's brain as he cajoled and demanded, making Lucia's surrender inevitable. As Edgardo, Richard Burke was best in dramatic moments, when his robust tenor soared, more lyrical passages sounding ragged and forced. Daniel Hague offered a fine Raimondo.
Anton Coppola conducted with sensitivity and rhythmic flexibility. James de Blasis' staging, full of effective touches, made for some fine ensemble work. Against Stivanello's gloomy sets, splashes of color in the revelers' costumes provided striking relief. GILBERT H. MOTT
NEW YORK CITY
Pierre Audi's production of Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria, imported from Netherlands Opera by the Brooklyn Academy of Music to the Majestic Theater (June 510), is one of the most unified, visually pleasing, emotionally satisfying evenings of opera that New York has seen in years. Set in a Richard Serra-influenced landscape of looming steel slabs (by Michael Simon), conductor Glen Wilson's performing edition of the opera (somewhat rearranged but orchestrally spare) unfolded with serene majesty. Audi (who also heads Netherlands Opera) balanced the abstract prologue with the humanity of the story of Ulisse, Penelope and her suitors, and the comic elements that were added.
Audi's sense of movement and posing of figures in space are unerring in transforming beauty into dramatic meaning, so that the inexorable buildup to Ulisse's slaughter of the suitors was communicated strongly. The director's finest moment, however, came not with the coup de théâtre of noise and fire at the killing, but with the slow recognition scene of Ulisse and his faithful wife, set on a diagonal flooded with light (Jean Kalman's lighting was inspired). As with the earlier meeting of Ulisse and his son Telemaco, Audi focused on the simplicity of emotional response, illuminating Monteverdi's great if flawed score.
The cast could hardly have been bettered. In the title role, Anthony Rolfe Johnson attested to his growing stature as a major singer. His lurking presence throughout the second part gave the final scene added poignancy. Graciela Araya's Penelope was a model of restraint and banked passion, well articulated in her almost balletic movement. Of the large supporting cast, Alexander Oliver as the overweight comic Iro and Rachel Ann Morgan as the goddess Atena stood out, while Wilson conducted his small forces from the cembalo.
Weber's Der Freischütz never has had much success in the U.S., but its considerable force was well exemplified in a concert performance by the New York Philharmonic (Avery Fisher Hall, May 13). Colin Davis knows how to make the music expressive, and his coloristic abilities -- particularly the ländler and the Wolf's Glen scene -- were especially telling. He had the benefit of a superior cast: Thomas Moser sang a strong, musical Max, and Ekkehard Wlaschiha's black voice well delineated the evil Caspar. Barbara Kilduff's Ännchen was appropriately pert, her soprano blending well with that of the Agathe, Sharon Sweet, whose soprano -- large, imposing, dominant -- is one of the most promising of recent years but still some way from maturity. She tends to stray from pitch above the staff and needs more work on making her phrasing natural rather than effortful -- important for Agathe's prayer, where the legato must float on the breath. All in all, however, an evening of memorable music-making. P.J.S.
* Emmanuel Chabrier wrote few operettas, and Parisians of 1877 thought L'Étoile precious compared to the year's blockbuster, Planquette's Les Cloches de Corneville. A century and a quarter later, L'Étoile has become popular, however, while the other work languishes. Certainly Chabrier's harmonic and melodic suppleness and invention surpass the efforts of his opéra-bouffe peers, except Offenbach and possibly Lecocq and Messager.
For the Opéra Français de New York (Florence Gould Hall, May 14) Yves Abel was firmly in control, handling Chabrier's brash frivolities and softer gentilities with equal elegance. Kimberly Barber made an exceptional Lazuli, the travesti peddler, shining in the title ode, and Paul D. Moore proved a pungent King Ouf I, the Mikado-like monarch who relishes torture and execution but listens too closely to his astrologer.
Librettists Leterrier and Vanloo's farcical-fanciful Oriental tale was streamlined in Christopher Alden's production into an open yellow environment, inhabited by posing, postmodern partygoers sporting glasses and cigarette-holders, or winter woollens, boots and sunglasses. What all this meant was unclear, except perhaps that Alden sees operetta in cocktail-party terms, disdains its period look and likes yellow. Adam Silverman's lighting supplied needed spectacle.
The somewhat cut dialogue was given in French, at times with pronounced Canadian or other North American accents. A better solution might have been a clever English narration, plus some choice lines for emphasis. But the score was the thing, and to hear this delectable work well sung and played helped override moments of modish, quirky intensity. RICHARD TRAUBNER
* Dicapo Theatre concluded its 199293 subscription series with Suor Angelica (March 12, 13, 14), noteworthy for some inspired achievements as well as frustrating disappointments. Suor Angelica presents an interesting challenge: the nun's personal tragedy must be conveyed within the framework of spiritual serenity and repressed tensions, the consolation of faith against the terrors of the world. Michael Capaso met this challenge with empathy and imagination, using George Ellis' exquisite set to full advantage. The production was sensitive and dynamic, successfully avoiding saccharine sweetness and melodrama.
Anne Patrick Singer's Angelica was vocally compelling if dramatically inconsistent. Her "Senza mamma" powerfully depicted her grief over the death of her child, but as an actress she seemed oddly uninvolved in Angelica's confrontation with her aunt or her own death. Susan Titone gave a stunning rendering of the Princess Aunt, sung with acidic enmity, enacted with bone-chilling malice, her relentless stare and utter lack of compassion unsettling. Having her perform from a wheelchair was an imaginative touch. Reegan McKenzie's "Soave Signor mio" captured the innocence and wistfulness of Genovieffa.
The performance space -- the basement of St. Jean Baptiste Church -- was too small to accommodate musicians and conductor in the conventional front-of-stage placement. Instead, the six-member ensemble was situated alongside the audience area and on the opposite side of a curtain. While this arrangement proved acoustically viable for the listener, it was inadequate for the singers, who struggled for greater connection with the conductor. In spite of this, plus intonation problems from the instrumentalists, the vocal ensemble delivered a poised, engaging performance. ARLO MCKINNON JR.
* In May, Manhattan's Measured Breaths Theatre Company further consolidated its reputation for refreshingly different music theater with an accomplished double bill of Brecht and Weill's He Who Says Yes and Emilio Cavalieri's The Representation of Body and Soul. The pieces were paired as examples of "learning operas"; both works examine the relationship between societal responsibility and individual desire. He Who Says Yes, an adaptation by Brecht of a fourteenth-century Japanese Noh play, was staged simply and proved an effective prelude for the longer, more ambitious Representation, whose sixteenth-century libretto is a corruption of church morality plays of the late Middle Ages and establishes its dramatic action through the use of opposing archetypical characters (e.g., Body vs. Soul). The play takes place in purgatory, with heaven and hell each just around the corner. Director Robert Press' textual acuity let him bring the opera to life with admirably quirky postmodern details: pillows for heavenly clouds, hell hidden behind Venetian mini-blinds and a Guardian Angel (Marcella Calabi) with the square-shouldered bossiness of an Ayn Rand heroine. Under the musical direction of Roberto Pace, the six-piece orchestra and cast of twelve performed beautifully. Star of the evening was coloratura gamine Wendy Lashbrook Jorissen, affectingly fragile as the Boy in Yes and delicious as Soul in Representation. Baritone Louis Meagley, Jr., an imposing Teacher in Yes, and soprano Lizette Amado, who brought Attitude to life as a feisty member of Representation's Cherubic Commedia Chorus, were also standouts in a cast distinguished for its commitment and versatility. F. PAUL DRISCOLL
PHILADELPHIA
The tenor's abrupt cancellation cast a shadow over Opera Company of Philadelphia's attempt to showcase winners of his Luciano Pavarotti/OCP competition. The company followed up a dispiriting La Bohème with La Favorita, sung by strong casts of competition winners. Two fine tenors led the performances at the Academy of Music -- Don Bernardini, who shaped a suave, supple bel canto line in both of Fernando's arias on March 1, and Stuart Neill, who four days later provided the touch of vocal glamour missing from Bernardini's incisive singing. Neill, exulting in Donizetti's long-breathed line, acted with fervor if not polish.
Alternating in the title role, Ildiko Komlosi and Maria Pentcheva unfurled commanding, sometimes wavering voices. Martin Babjak gave a rounded portrayal of Alfonso, while Gordon Hawkins displayed a finer voice but tended to oversing. After showing how loud he could roar in the first performance, Andrea Silvestrelli (Baldassare) proved how well he could sing in the second. Two fine sopranos, Christine Akre and Eszter Sugegi, shared Ines. Conductor Leone Magiera sometimes opted for force over nuance. Beppe De Tomasi created impressive stage pictures and added a few nonsinging characters to clarify the drama.
OCP ended its season with Eugene Onegin at the Academy on April 16. Gino Quilico revealed the dark, weighty sound appropriate for Tchaikovsky's antihero, commanding the stage as confidently as he sang the music. As Tatyana, Elena Filipova's big, unyielding soprano proved more suitable for the dramatic outbursts of the final duet than for the lyrical musings of the letter scene. Jane Gilbert, another competition winner, revealed a mezzo of genuine quality as Olga. Michael Rees Davis lacked vocal weight for Lensky's heroic moments but sang his aria sweetly. Kenneth Cox filled the melodic contours of Gremin's aria with an impressive bass. The cast was topped off by Mignon Dunn's experienced Filippyevna and Kathleen Segar's assured Mme. Larina. Steven Mercurio presided over a dramatic reading. Kay Walker Castaldo charted the action carefully, but her staging was compromised by Pier Luigi Samaritani's dank, dark sets, from Lyric Opera of Chicago. ROBERT BAXTER
PITTSBURGH
Pittsburgh Opera's Il Trovatore (March 28April 7) turned into the company's most successful effort of the season. Tito Capobianco's staging gave the principals freedom to stand downstage for their arias and duets and made the bigger scenes impressive amid David Gano's utilitarian (though poorly lit) New Orleans Opera sets on the spacious Benedum Center stage. Imre Pallo conducted with refinement and subtlety.
Frances Ginsberg, essaying her first Leonora, headed the cast. Glamorous of voice and appearance, she combined bel canto technique with dramatic credibility, shaping and coloring her phrases to the meaning of the words. Stefania Toczyska's Azucena had the authority of experience, but her bland timbre weakened more dramatic moments. Ermanno Mauro shouted and blustered his way through the title part. Though Bruno Pola's Di Luna also lacked legato, he compensated with thrilling high notes. As Ferrando, Miguel Angel Zapater used promising vocal equipment with a beginner's technique and musicality.
Madama Butterfly (May 819) was crippled by the lightweight casting of Elizabeth Holleque as Cio-Cio-San and Joseph Evans as Pinkerton. The soprano's attractive lyric sound is cold and monochromatic, and her insecurity in the higher range resulted in a faked floated D-flat at the end of the entrance scene and shortened climax of "Un bel dì." Kathleen Hegierski's Suzuki and Manuel Lanza's Sharpless were adequately vocalized, but Horacio Rodriguez Aragon's careless staging gave the consul a limp, then allowed him to leave it and his cane at Butterfly's door in Act II, only to resume both in the final scenes. Theo Alcantara kept things going without major mishaps.
A charming novelty was Rossini's Il Turco in Italia, performed by members of the Pittsburgh Opera Center at Duquesne at Carlow College, February 26 and 27. Capobianco staged his apprentice singers in lively fashion, molding them into a genuine ensemble. Danielle Strauss was a technically proficient Fiorilla, while baritone Rod Nelman (Geronio) and bass Ken Magos (the Poet) projected their comic scenes with flair. Conducting honors were shared by faculty coach and chorus master Joel Ethan Fried and artist fellow Steven Guadagno. ROBERT CROAN
MILWAUKEE
Skylight Opera Theatre concluded its season with a fascinating work, The Jewel Box, concocted by music critic Paul Griffiths to provide a theatrical format for many of Mozart's now rarely performed incidental arias and ensembles. Neither a simple pasticcio-style story nor a reworking of a genuine period libretto, Griffiths' plot tells of four commedia dell'arte characters stranded in the artificial world of an incomplete opera buffa. In their attempts to find a composer to finish their opera -- and themselves -- they escape the limits of their tiny stage and time frame to communicate with a young composer (ostensibly Mozart), who, easily drawn to their world of theatrical fantasy, quickly becomes enamored of the soubrette Colombina and agrees to help them. Several characters from the composer's world, his fiancée (an opera seria singer) and his father, intrude, attempting to bring the composer back to reality -- to continue the great work he should be writing there. The composer is torn between these contending characters until he finally realizes what he must do. He incorporates them all into one grand, culminating masterpiece, and as The Jewel Box ends, each of its characters is seen being recostumed for an appropriate role in Die Zauberflöte.
All this is done in singspiel format, in English, with Griffiths' spoken dialogue stringing Mozart's gems together in a tidy sequence of musical keys and fanciful dramatic structure. Some of the aria translations are not Griffiths' best work, and several of the arias (notably those composed for Aloysia Weber-Lange, the first Queen of the Night) are so remarkable that they almost overwhelm the venture. But any listener who gives over to the fun and cleverness of it all is amply rewarded.
Skylight's youthful cast was brimming with style and technique. Top vocal honors (May 5) went to soprano Carol Chickering, who, as the Singer, fell heir to the Weber-Lange arias. Whiplash coloratura, two-octave-plus leaps and stratospheric range appeared to hold no terrors for her. Mezzo Diane Lane as the Composer and Ilana Davidson as Colombina also executed their florid arias with notable verve. Bass Mike Moliterno brought grand, Sarastro-like tone to the Father. Tenor Keith Alexander Bolves sang Pedrolino's arias affectingly, while Peter Gillis and Bruce Rameker sang well and made charming commedia dell'arte characters as the Dottore and Pantalone. Rescoring enabled the music to be played by just six instrumentalists. The only great loss: the virtuoso string-bass part in "Per questa bella mano."
Conductor Joe Illick kept things crisp, clean and neatly balanced. Designer Nicholas Lundy split his stage picture to suggest the time twist inherent in the story -- a charming, petite baroque theater on one side of his stage and the Composer's modern, cluttered apartment on the other. Virgil Johnson's excellent costume designs also echoed this idea. Stage director Chas Rader-Shieber drew interesting characterizations from his actors. JOHN KOOPMAN
BRUSSELS
The world premiere of Philippe Boesmans' Reigen (attended March 7) seems to have surprised much of the press with its easy charm. One might question the choice of Schnitzler's play as libretto source, as its ten dialogues (each culminating in intercourse) allow little room for either musical or dramatic development. The many parodistic elements in the score (Berg, Weill, Wagner, to cite a few) are neatly absorbed into the overall texture, and though one marvels at subtleties of orchestration and the extraordinary work of librettist-director Luc Bondy, one cannot help noting that further pruning of the text might have helped avoid some longueurs. Boesmans' writing, largely in the middle range of each voice, made possible almost total comprehension of the text, aided by the good diction of all the performers. Bondy is to be congratulated for the variety of ways in which he dispatched the various grapplings. That he found two female singers willing to expose themselves, one to the extent of being spotlit by a flashlight-waving Lucinda Childs, is indicative of the commitment he commands from his performers. Other opera rarities were the amount of underwear discarded and the number of cigarettes smoked onstage.
Remarkable performances were given by soprano Solveig Kringelborn (Wife), mezzo Randi Stene (Sweet Young Thing), soprano Françoise Pollet (Prima Donna) and baritone Dale Duesing (Count), Pollet having a marvelous time and displaying hitherto unknown comic talents. The remaining singers (Deborah Raymond, tenor Marc Curtis, soprano Elzbieta Ardam, tenor Roberto Sacca, bass-baritone Franz Ferdinand Nentwig, tenor Ronald Hamilton) were excellent but without the visceral impact of the others. Erich Wonder's sets and Susanne Raschig's costumes helped sustain the tawdry Viennese atmosphere.
Cavalli's La Calisto (April 4), masterminded by conductor René Jacobs and director-designer Herbert Wernicke, offered an afternoon of total enchantment. Wernicke's simple decor -- copied from the ceiling of a palace in Viterbo depicting a heavenly chart, with lots of trap doors and windows and descending platforms -- gave ample space and ambience for his bawdy commedia dell'arte approach. One might question the necessity of cramming Endimione into such a scheme as Pierrot when Graham Pushee's countertenor was particularly affecting in this human character. Star of the evening was Maria Bayo in the title role, her warm, well-schooled soprano and temperament-to-burn indicating a singer to watch. Alessandra Mantovani sang Diana from the orchestra while an indisposed Monica Bacelli acted out the role. Marcello Lippi sang not only a jocular Giove but also displayed a remarkable falsetto as Giove disguised as Diana (unlike the 1970 Glyndebourne performances, which had Janet Baker portraying Diana in both guises). Christophe Hombergher's travesty Linfea threatened to exceed the bounds of good taste, but that is in the tradition of the role. Dominique Visse's nimble Satirino, Simon Keenlyside's athletic Mercurio, Sonja Theodoridou's emphatic Giunone, and the Pane of Reinaldo Macias and Silvano of David Pittsinger rounded out a remarkable cast. Jacobs also provided the performing version, using a larger orchestra (of authentic instruments) than is customary. JOEL KASOW
BERLIN
Listed as a coproduction with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi came out on April 2 in Ulisse Santicchi's elegant gray unit sets and luscious scarlet-to-lemon-yellow costumes, in which Giulio Chazalettes effectively placed his singers and pageantlike chorus. The Staatsoper had given the first German performance of the work in 1834, four years after its Venetian premiere, so Bellini's treatment of Romeo and Juliet was an excellent choice, not only because of the dearth of bel canto opera stagings here but because it added perspective to the house's 250th-anniversary season.
Heading the cast, Lella Cuberli's affecting Giulietta, matched in intensity by Iris Vermillion's excellent Romeo, unaccountably was booed. Lorenzo (Ildebrando d'Arcangelo), Capellio (René Pape) and Tebaldo (stentorian Vicente Ombuena) were all well taken, and the whole affair was vigorously conducted by Antonio Pappano, who drew lustrous tone from the orchestra.
A curious Capriccio, set by the British team of Jonathan Miller, Peter J. Davison and Sue Blane in what appeared to be the ruins of Munich's Nationaltheater (the work was given its premiere there in 1942, when World War II was still raging), followed on May 7. The nonplussed Berlin audience was obliged to listen to Nazi radio propaganda while the actors for a forthcoming Capriccio rehearsal had costumes, wigs (for once stylistically correct) and makeup adjusted on what looked like a partially destroyed, raked provisional stage, as gratuitous as the sound of bombs and searchlights crisscrossing the sky after the Countess' final scene, sung without harp directly to the audience. Perhaps this accounted for Yvonne Kenny's Madeleine -- at first exquisitely characterized through voice and gesture -- sounding pinched and strained. Her companions acquitted themselves well: baritone Karsten Mewes (Count), tenor Robert Swensen (Flamand), baritone Roman Trekel (Olivier), bass Siegfried Vogel (a bearish La Roche), mezzo Rosemarie Lang (plummy but unclear as Clairon), soprano Laura Aikin and tenor Dino di Domenico (the Italian singers). Though Miller's staging reproduced a more or less standard Capriccio between air raids, he changed details of the action, never to the advantage of clarity. The heavenly moonlight interlude, during which the salon candles are supposed to be lit, was reduced to music accompanying an ugly empty stage, with ruins visible through broken panes of the back window. Fortunately, Hartmut Haenchen's conducting clarified and lightened textures.
This was also the case with Deutsche Oper's new Die Meistersinger on May 1. Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos provided an unhurried, standard account of the score except for a wonderful clarity that laid bare many a woodwind passage normally submerged by massed string sound. Wolfgang Brendel, singing his first, appealingly youthful Sachs, kept running ahead of his accompaniments. Switching from David to Walther, Gösta Winbergh sounded wonderfully lyrical until he tried to outsing the massed forces of the finale, with disastrous results. Except for Eva Johansson's charming if hectic-sounding Eva, Frühbeck's carefully controlled dynamics made most of the text understandable and added immensely to the enjoyment of the Masters, especially Jan-Hendrik Rootering's Pogner and Lenus Carlson's Kothner, who established his authority through a gem of vocal stagecraft. In a class of its own was Eike Wilm Schulte's magnificent Beckmesser.
Götz Friedrich's thoughtful staging gave each Master an individual character. He insisted that Beckmesser's antics were the aberration of a respected, valuable citizen temporarily off balance because of his determination to win Eva and her dowry. Designers Peter Sykora and Kirsten Dephoff provided a huge lenslike circle with an attractive scale model of medieval Nuremberg in its lower curve, suggesting a fisheye view of history with a projection of the bombed-out city. Costumes ranged from Biedermeier to the 1930s. JAMES HELME SUTCLIFFE
BIRMINGHAM, U.K.
Welsh National Opera chose Donizetti's La Favorita in response to a sponsor's request for a nineteenth-century opera that had not lived up to its early popularity. It is hard to see what engaged the first audiences in this cobbling together of two other Donizetti operas. The plot seems an impossible mixture of ancient Spanish honor and a much later romanticism. The music, while facile, never erupts into memorable numbers. Nevertheless, on April 16 at Birmingham Hippodrome, WNO made something of it with an irresistibly opulent production by Rennie Wright. The court scenes were garishly presented, and a multitude of black steps served for extravagant ensemble movements. Bright orchestral playing under Julian Smith and full-throated singing kept the show alive. As the hero, Fernando, tenor Bonaventura Bottone strode confidently through religion, sex and militarism, though with strident tone. Bernadette Cullen's generous mezzo established a positive Leonora.MAURICE DUNMORE