Opera has plenty of other things to offer, but for sheer unbridled passion – for tempestuous emotions turned up to a boil and then pushed even further – it’s hard to top the traditional double bill of “Cavalleria Rusticana” and “Pagliacci” (“Cav/Pag” to opera buffs). These are the operas in which jealousy, lust and murder set up shop at center stage and don’t budge.
So it would be understandable if the audience for the San Francisco Opera’s season opener on Friday, Sept. 7 – a gala crowd that included political notables (Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Mayor London Breed) and all manner of society swells – came out of the War Memorial Opera House feeling a little drained, perhaps even overwhelmed.
But also exhilarated, because this was an absolutely splendid display of vocal and theatrical sorcery, the kind of undertaking that leaves you eager to hear what else the company has lined up for this season. The singing from two distinct but intertwined casts was first-rate across the board, the debut of conductor Daniele Callegari made the most of the impassioned fluidity in the scores, and José Cura’s intriguingly double-barreled production – nimbly staged here by director Jose Maria Condemi – provided a slightly new spin on familiar material.
谁could ask for more?
The only thing I can think of to grumble at, really, is the time-honored complaint that yet again “Pagliacci” (“Clowns”) – Ruggero Leoncavallo’s taut and inventive masterpiece that finds time to consider matters of art and illusion along with its helping of red-blooded emotion – has to share the stage with a piece of second-rate motley like Pietro Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana” (“Rustic Chivalry”), with its halting dramaturgy and dull digressions. But I’ll get over it.
And if we have to sit through “Cavalleria” to get to the good stuff, by all means let it be sung as vividly and attentively as it was on Friday by a cast fully attuned to the score’s knife-edge impulsiveness – and able to render those qualities with both vigor and technical precision.
The star of the evening’s first half was mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk as the lovelorn Santuzza, the critical point in the opera’s lopsided four-part romantic geometry (more than a love triangle, not quite a square). Semenchuk has been a vibrant presence in her two prior San Francisco appearances (“Luisa Miller”in 2015,“Aida”the following year), and to the vocal power and sheen of those performances she now added a vein of impeccably controlled wildness that contributed to the portrait of a woman on the verge of despair.
Pushing her in that direction was Turiddu, embodied with beefy heedlessness and vocal charisma by tenor Roberto Aronica. As the stolid, cuckolded carter Alfio, debuting baritone Dimitri Platanias sang rather stolidly (but returned after intermission in much better form). Mamma Lucia, the village matriarch, boasted robust authority in mezzo-soprano Jill Grove’s rendition.
“Cavalleria”也出现一个华丽的贡献by mezzo-soprano Laura Krumm as Lola, the focus of all the men’s desires. Krumm has been a strong, reliable presence on local opera stages since her time as an Adler Fellow several years ago, but I’ve never before heard her sing with such a combination of force, rich vocal color and sheer self-assurance. This performance – brief but entrancing – felt like a major step forward.
If the women in the “Cavalleria” cast emerged as firsts among equals, the same was true in “Pagliacci” – except that there was only one woman. As Nedda, the sole female member of a traveling theatrical troupe, soprano Lianna Haroutounian delivered yet another of her glistening,glorious star turns.
Her singing was bright and ardent at every turn, with soaring phrases in the aria “Oh! che volo d’augelli” (a celebration of the birds whose freedom contrasts with her own constrained circumstances) and ever-increasing passion in the love duet with her paramour Silvio (baritone David Pershall, in a deft performance). And she brought just the right combination of poignancy and cunning to her portrait of a woman in dire straits.
The menfolk were tenor Marco Berti, who brought vocal muscle and a hard-edged vulnerability to the role of Canio, the troupe’s leader, and Platanias, whose singing as the malevolent Tonio – and especially in the opera’s prologue – displayed a wondrous new fluency and luster. Tenor Amitai Pati, an Adler Fellow, sang sweetly but not always audibly as Beppe. Ian Robertson’s Opera Chorus made full-throated, tender appearances in both works.
The theatrical premise in Cura’s production – aside from moving the action from Italy to Buenos Aires – is to locate the events of both operas in the same space on consecutive days. So “Pagliacci” opens with the coffin of the slain Turiddu being carried out of church, and characters from each opera wander through the crowd scenes of the other.
As gimmicks go, there’s nothing particularly wrong with this one; it doesn’t add much to our understanding of either work, but it does provide a certain continuity, and it emphasizes the sense of communal living that forms the basis of both piece. It also includes a fascinating reassignment of a famous line to a different character entirely, which adds an extra element of boldness to an evening that is already full of fire and excitement.
“Cavalleria Rusticana” & “Pagliacci”:Through Sept. 30. $26-$370. War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., S.F. 415-864-3330.www.sfopera.com