Skip to main content

Alcina   
Washington National Opera

Alcina is a sorceress living on fantasy island who turns her lovers into stones or other objects when she is through with them. There is a long backstory before the complex history of all the characters surrounding her in  Handel’s opera Alcina even starts to unfold.  In short by the end,  Alcina gets what she deserves.  
Handel’s opera Alcina also got what it deserves— Washington National Opera’s  assembly of a cast of grand singers, set on a glorious stage with lighting to evoke their emotional states along with graceful dancers flowing throughout. 
It leaves no surprise that Angela Meade would take ownership of this role of Alcina, adding sorceress to her impressive resume of fantasy characters like the Druid high priestess Norma and the Babylonian queen Semiramide.  Her singing is the stuff that legends are made of, her power in unleashing the hidden glories in Handel’s score.
Elizabeth DeShong is Ruggiero, her current lover, who has deserted his fiancee for this fantasy romantic escapade.  The mezzo soprano has one of the most beautiful arias  "Verdi prati" ("Green meadows”)  when he knows he must depart this beautiful illusion for real life.   DeShong captures our hearts in her rendering, as convincingly as Alcina has captured Ruggiero.
Ying Fang is Morgana, Alcina’s sister who is also a sorceress.  Fang sings with delightful youthfulness, her voice well suited for Baroque opera.
Daniela Mack is Bradamante, the jilted fiancee of Ruggiero, who disguises herself as a man to find him,  only to add to the confusion of the two sorceresses who see Bradamante as a possible boyfriend.   Her role has the most relationship complications with her determination fueling emotions from jealous anger to devoted love. All this she must  experience and which Mack conveys in her singing. 
Neil Patel’s  scenery and Christopher Akerlind’s  lightening meld together as the moon-shaped background change shades of colors as the moods changed.  Choreographer Barney O’Hanlon  created illusions in the imagination with four spirits whose twisting movements like waves arise  and then disappear into shadows.  
This is WNO’s first production of Alcina,  an opera with  the core theme of obsessive attraction that is  wide open for interpretations.  There are the didactic possibilities like a  recent production which emphasized a modern day  theme of Alcina representing  drug addiction (as seen in an illusionary fascination which  also  turns people into stones, or animals or whatever and which in the end has to die out,  so that love and life can return to normal).  The other extreme, interpreting this with a 18th century staged setting and costumes  is impractically for  most budgets.     
What WNO has achieved with their production led by director Anne Bogart with renowned Baroque Music  Conductor June Glover is to appeal to modern sensibilities with an artistic production, giving  the music its due while being pleasing to the eye.
What more could you ask for, but this treat of art for its own sake, and let the  moral lessons fall for another day.  
In  The Eisenhower Theater at The Kennedy Center, Washington DC,  Nov. 4-19 2017.




Popular posts from this blog

  Once is here again!   The Brooklyn Gallery Players reach into the treasure chest of great musicals to bring Once alive and on stage in Brooklyn (until to December 17, 2023). Director Mark Gallagher , and Music Directors David Fletcher and Brendon McCray have crafted a vibrant production, seamlessly integrating the 15 member cast in roles  as both actors and musicians. Set in Dublin, the  formula for the poignant love triangle  is simple. Patrick Newhart  plays Guy, an Irish musician who has given up  on love as he sings the award winning classic  Falling.  Newhart mastered the bombastic busking guitar style and performed each of his songs with intensity and passion Sophie Smith-Brody  is Girl,  a Czech woman  who will inspire him to try again both in  love and with music. Smith-Brody performed each of her disparate songs with aplomb,  from the opening classical piece to her plaintive solos – If You Want Me and The Hill.  The performance starts  with an “ impromptu”  p
               TINA - THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL  at The National Theatre              In the 1970s, I  had spent weeks climbing around ruins in Peru.  I heard music of the Andes all over.  I  was  finally at  Machu Picchu to spend the night so I could get up early  and climb to see the sunrise from the top of the ruins.   As I got to steps by the gatekeepe,  I could hear his boom box blaring across the Andes “I Wanna Take You Higher”  by Tina Turner.   You don’t have to go climbing the Andes to hear her songs — Tina-The Tina Turner Musical  isright here  at the National Theatre, Washington DC,  until  Oct. 23, 2022.    The show has broken all records with the awards it has received since in premiered in April 2018 in London.  No one questions that Tina is a musical legend but  for this show  accolades to  the stars Naomi Rodgers and Zurin Villanueva who alternate in the  spectacular role.   At every performance there will be people  who remember seeing Tina “back when” and

TEMPLE OF THE SOULS

  AT NEW YORK MUSICAL FESTIVAL 2017 Modern day tourists in a sacred spot in Puerto Rico find themselves enthralled in the history of  the place, once the home to Conquistadors who brutalized and extinguished the native people.  Temple of the Souls is the backdrop for this retelling of the classic Romeo and Juliet  story. We know from the beginning that  the end is going to be bloody but the journey to that is filled with lush melodies of the joys of love and delight in life. Noellia Hernandez is enchanting as Amada, the daughter of a mixed blood. Lorraine Velez  as Nana, her nurse/her father’s mistress/and her real life but unrecognized mother, gives a heart stopping performance.   Danny Bolero is powerful as Don Severo who rules everyone Andres Quintero is strong as the native who wins Amada’s love.   Jacob Gutierrez as Nemesio, her cousin and intended spouse is quite dashing.   The ensemble was exuberant in song and dance in what was a two hour no intermi