Music Reviews

Nov 9, 2002 - Nevada Opera's season-opening "Rigoletto" has a Rembrandt glow and a thrilling sound

By Jack Neal

Nevada Opera's newly staged "Rigoletto," which opened Friday night (11/8/2002) at Reno's Pioneer Center, has a warm Rembrandt glow and the kind of thrilling vocal and orchestral sound that makes opera, when it's grand and this time it is, a powerful emotional experience.

David Gano's Wieland Wagner style sets - a raked stage with dark fragmented walls set gothically off with penetrating pinpoint lighting - are impressive without being intrusive. Gano's designs present a sleek dramatic appearance, enhanced to the proverbial rafters by a sleek looking, skillfully dramatic, brilliant-sounding cast.

Playing on "Rigoletto's" intrigue and basic nastiness, director Kyle Marrero has staged his glimpse of Verdi's opera noir with a shadowy panache much like Alfred Hitchcock's early black-and-white films. Marrero just keeps out of the way and lets the score's action sing for itself in one understated scene after another. The director's focused staging packs a wallop few "Rigolettos" can match.

Don Smith's lighting does the rest, leaving much of the action in a hazy gloominess that would cover most operatic acting handsomely, except this time out it's to set mood and not out of necessity. This young good-looking cast doesn't need to be shrouded, nor does its affecting and realistic acting need to be played out in the shadows. Passion and verismo are alive and well, making the entire "Rigoletto" experience a gripping music drama of love, sex, fear and betrayal for the gods.

In the title role, baritone Oziel Garza Ornales proves that the disfigured Rigoletto's plight of saving his gorgeous daugher, Gilda, from sexual exploitation by the handsome, amoral Duke of Mantua can be portrayed more effectively by physical restraint and vocal subtlety than by hammy clowning and bellowing.

Garza-Ornales spins his tale of love, woe and vengeance with a rich sound, skillful musicianship and a pyschological anguish over Gilda's threatened well-being that makes his portrait of Verdi's court jester particularly touching. He strikes just the right balance between grotesquerie and pathos. His mezza-voce singing is exceptionally beautiful yet he has plenty of power in his "Cortegianni" outburst, his "Si, vendetta" duet with Gilda and his agonized "Ah, la maledizione!" at the final curtain.

As Gilda, soprano Jane Redding sings as beautifully as she looks and she's gorgeous. Redding has a lustrous sound and a gift for making each phrase a special moment to cherish. Her vulnerability is a major plus. She looks so young and so troubled the duke's lust takes on unsettling, yet theatrically intriguing, overtones of unmitigated pedophilia. From the first show of Gilda's love for her father, to her last selfless sacrifice for the man she loves, Redding gives a spellbinding performance. Her "Cara nome" is musically divine and spectacularly executed.

Undaunted by neither morality nor conscience, Theodore Green's superb singing and brash-young-man acting of the debauched duke is so sensational one doesn't really mind what he does to Gilda (or Maddelena), just so long as he sings while he does it The soaring tenor voice, which made such splendid impressions in two earlier appearances here, is more remarkable than ever. His "La donna e mobile," along with everything else he sings, is nothing less than show-stop time at the opera.

John Ames sketches a deliciously chilling Sparafucile. He brings to grand opera a handsome presence and a dark bass voice that thrills whenever he's on stage. Seconding Ames's towering Sparafucile, mezzo Victoria Kelp also sings gloriously and is a gutsy, no-glamor Maddelena to be reckoned with. Emil Cristescu sings a menacing Meterone that raises this "Rigoletto's" voice of doom to new heights of sordidness. Solid performances by Mark Panuccio (Borsa), Justin Givens (Marullo), Janet Traut (Giovanna), Joy Strotz (Countess Ceprano), Lawrence D. Clawson (Herald) and Kelly Ingram (Page) also deserve mention.

Verdi's graceful music is delivered with conviction and ample lyricism by conductor Robin Andrew Stamper, who has whipped the company's orchestra and chorus into fine mid-season shape. Stamper's uncompromising approach to realizing Verdi's great score is basic to making this production the wonder it is. Susan Memmott-Allred's costume designs are realistic, often quite handsome and more than up to the task of cloaking the production in its persistent veil of darkness and dread. As compelling lyric theater, Nevada Opera's "Rigoletto" is a tormenting, vibrant, gorgeously sung presentation and an impressive opener for the company's 35th season.

"Rigoletto" will be repeated Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts, 100 South Virginia Street, Reno. For information about "Rigoletto" and other Nevada Opera performances and events call 775-686-6600 or 775-786-4046.