TheatreScene.net

01/13/2004

Bronx Opera: Equivoco stravagante (American premiere)
By: Bruce-Michael Gelbert

Cameron Smith (below, left) as Ermanno & September Bigelow as Ernestina.

Photo by Marisol Diaz

The Bronx Opera is to be commended as adventuresome for beginning its 36 ^th season by presenting the American premiere of an early Gioacchino Rossini opera, "L'equivoco stravagante"—performed here in English as "The Bizarre Deception"--a product of the composer's 19 ^th year. With a racier than usual libretto by Gaetani Gasbarri—a suitor begins by sniffing a young lady's foot and ends by accusing her of being not only a castrato, but also an army deserter in drag—it was banned in Bologna after its third performance in 1811. The score, of Mozartian delicacy and sparkle, boasts coloratura, patter, and the sort of all-hell-breaks-loose, crescendoing act finale that marks Rossini's later comedies. A worthy cast, under conductor Eric Kramer, made a persuasive case for the work. Ensembles were precisely executed and the cheerfully lusty staging was by Benjamin Spierman, translation by Elizabeth M. Hastings.

Heading the cast as a spirited Ernestina, intellectual and eligible daughter of the farmer, Gamberotto, September Bigelow displayed a crystalline coloratura mezzo-soprano in her florid opening address to her sister academics and later bravura romanza-cum-martial rondo. The young Marilyn Horne or, more recently, Cecilia Bartoli, would have reveled in the role. Bigelow was ably partnered by Cameron Smith, an estimable lyric coloratura tenor (but for some harsh top tones), as her poor, but honest love, Ermanno, and it was a pleasure to hear them join voices in the duet, replete with florid passages, in which they revealed their feelings. Mezzo Andrea Arena and baritone John Dooley made their marks as servants who abet the happy pair. Only lacking were stronger voices in the two low-voice buffo parts, Buralicchio, the preposterous suitor, sung by Benjamin de la Fuente, wearing black top hat and red high heels, and the ambitious Gamberotto, played by Dennis Blackwell.

If the orchestra's moments of glory were the overture and grand concerted numbers, the choristers' time to shine came at the start of Act Two, as they puzzled over plot developments thus far. Anka Lupes dressed the peasants in rustic costume, adorned with vegetable and fruit designs, and the scholars in dark red academic robes. Meganne George designed a sunny orchard, with set pieces that reversed to become a library burgeoning with books.

With two performances at Lehman College, in the Bronx, and two at Hunter, in Manhattan, "Equivoco stravagante" is double cast, with Anna Tonna, Albert Neal, Elizabeth Cass, Lee A. Steward, Kurt Steinhauer and Mark Fitzgerald Wilson alternating with Bigelow, Smith, Arena, Dooley, Fuente and Blackwell. Artistic Director Michael Spierman wields the baton at the final hearing.

The company's season concludes with "La Traviata" at Lehman on May 14 and 15 and at Hofstra University, in Hempstead, on May 21 and 22.

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