Opera Review: The next generation of stars shine at Opera Theatre's Center Stage concert

Tuesday night (June 20th) Opera Theatre of St. Louis presented the eighth edition of its justly celebrated “Center Stage” concert. Travel plans obliged us to miss last year’s edition, so I was looking forward to this annual showcase of opera and musical theatre selections performed by the Richard Gaddes Festival Artists and Gerdine Young Artists backed up by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra under the baton of OTSL Principal Conductor Daniela Candillari.

L-R: Maria Consamus, Anastasia Malliaras in "We are Women" Photo: Jessica Flanigan

I was not disappointed, to put it mildly. This was, once again, a tremendously entertaining evening, with a wide variety of music and excellent performances all the way around.

But first, a bit of background. Gerdine Young Artists is an intensive nine-week professional development program for rising young singers that includes master classes, extensive vocal coaching, and performances in both the OTSL chorus as well as in supporting roles in the festival season.

Admission is highly selective. This season there were over 1200 applicants, of whom only 33 made it into the program. Two of them—soprano Amani Cole-Felder and mezzo Elissa Pfaender—were also named Gaddes Festival artists, an honor reserved for “exceptionally remarkable young singers.” If you saw Cole-Felder in “Treemonisha” or Pfaender in “Susannah,” that will probably come as no surprise.

With 22 numbers and a two and one-half hour run time (including intermission) the evening was a long one. But there was so much musical variety and so many strong performances that I hardly noticed. Working in the limited space in front of the orchestra on the Loretto-Hilton stage, directors Claire Choquette, Dian Machin, Ian Silverman, OTSL Artistic Director James Robinson, and Young Artists Artistic Director Patricia Racette provided just enough staging for dramatic context while still moving the evening along at a fast pace.

Daniela Candillari and the SLSO Photo: Jessica Flanigan

There were so many wonderful numbers that I can’t possibly list them all, so I’ll limit myself to the ones I found especially striking—starting with the first few items on the program.

The SLSO kicked off the festivities with a rousing performance of the overture to Mikhail Glinka’s 1842 fairy tale opera “Ruslan and Lyudmila.” The opera is rarely seen but the overture, with its rapid-fire melodic exchanges and neat solo tympani part, is a popular concert item. The relatively dry acoustic of the Loretto-Hilton Center guaranteed that every note could be heard with a precision that would have been hazardous to an ensemble less polished than the SLSO. In this case, it just highlighted their virtuosity.

Up next was the opening scene from another fairy tale opera, Dvořák’s “Rusalka” (1900). In a bit of comedy reminiscent of the first scene of Wagner’s “Das Rheingold” (like many composers of the late 19th century, Dvořák could not entirely escape Wagner’s shadow) a trio of mischievous wood nymphs (sopranos Anastasia Malliaras and Nina Evelyn Anderson plus mezzo Pfaender) taunt the hapless Water Gnome (a dryly comic performance by bass-baritone Keith Klein) before dashing off and leaving him to shrug his shoulders at being had. This being Dvořák and not Wagner, the teasing isn’t mean-spirited, the Water Gnome doesn’t swear revenge, and the music is infused with spirited Slavonic dance rhythms.

L-R: Olivia Johnson, Victoria Lawal in "Uzh vechher" Photo: Jessica Flanigan

The mood then turned lyrical with “Uzh vecher,” from Act I Scene 2 of Tchaikovsky’s 1890 tragedy “Pique Dame” (a.k.a. “The Queen of Spades”), in which the heroine Liza (soprano Victoria Lawal) and her friend Pauline (mezzo Olivia Johnson) stroll in the garden and reflect on the beauty of the countryside.

The voices of the singers blended beautifully, creating a pastoral interlude before the next outbreak of comic hijinks, “Mi volete fiera? / Vado corro” from Donizetti’s 1834 opera buffa “Don Pasquale.” In it, the young widow Norina (played to the comic hilt by soprano Melissa Joseph) and Dr. Malatesta (baritone Titus Muzi III, ditto) plot their revenge on the titular Don, who obstinately stands between the union of Norina and the Don’s nephew Ernesto.

And so it goes, with a perfect blend of comedy and drama for the rest of the evening. In addition to the usual duets and trios there were two splendid and sharpy contrasting sextets: the rarely heard “Ice Cream Sextet” from Kurt Weill’s 1947 opera/musical “Street Scene” (done splendidly by OTSL in 2006) and the famous “Chi mi frena in tal momento” from Act II of Donizetti’s 1835 “Lucia di Lammermoor”—a number so well-known that even the Three Stooges and the Warner Brothers cartoon crew knew they could make fun of it without losing the audience.

L-R: Victoria Lawal, Joseph Park, Adam Catangui, Rachel Berg, Chancelor Barbaree, Maria Consumas In the "Ice Cream Sextet" Photo: Jessica Flanigan

Both sextets are classic examples of the form, in which each character expresses their own unique thoughts on the topic at hand while blending with the others in an elaborate web of vocal counterpoint. In “Lucia,” that topic is the supposed betrayal of Edgardo by Lucia, and the tone is one of shock and outrage. In “Street Scene” it’s all about the glories of the local drugstore lunch counter in general and ice cream in particular, and the tone is one of unbridled (not to say giddy) joy. Under James Robinson’s direction, the members of both ensembles delivered the goods perfectly.

The ”Lucia” ensemble consisted of tenors Ajit Persaud and Namarea Randolph-Yosea as the aggrieved Edgardo and Arturo, respectively, baritone Chancelor Barbaree as Lucia’s manipulative brother Enrico, bass Casey Germain as the chaplain Raimondo, mezzo Gabriela Linares as handmaid Alisa, and soprano Kathleen O’Mara in the starring role of the troubled Lucia. I have nothing but praise for all of them but feel that I must also congratulate O’Mara for an equally compelling Marguerite in the dramatic final trio from Gounod’s “Faust” only two numbers later.

Comedy is at least as demanding as tragedy, though, so I must heap many scoops of praise on the “Street Scene” ensemble: tenor Adam Catangui as the wildly enthusiastic Lippo (the star spot), soprano Victoria Lawal as Mrs. Fiorentino, mezzos Maria Consamus and Rachel Berg as, respectively, Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Olsen, bass-baritone Joseph Park as Mr. Olsen, and baritone Barbaree in the much more benevolent role of Mr. Jones.

L-R: Erin O'Rourke, Xiao Xiao in "Rodelina" Photo: Jessica Flanagan

No Center Stage concert would be complete without some spectacular choruses, of course. Act I closed with the highly charged ballroom scene from Act II Scene 1 of Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” in which an absurd argument between Lensky (tenor Jeremiah Tyson) and his friend Onegin (baritone Yazid Gray) about the latter’s flirtation with the former’s fiancée Olga (mezzo Hannah Jeané Jones) escalates into a challenge to a duel, to the horror of Tatiana (soprano Alexandria Crichlow), Larina (mezzo Olivia Johnson), and the ensemble of party guests. It all built to the sort of tremendous musical climax that Tchaikovsky did so well, sung and played with overwhelming power by the chorus and the orchestra.

The evening concluded with an equally potent but far more upbeat night club scene from Act II of Puccini’s “La Rondine” in which the worldly Magda (O’Mara in fine form once again) and her naïve lover Ruggero (tenor Camron Gray) join the poet Prunier (Catangui) and his off again/on again petite amie Lisette (Malliaras) in a joyous toast to love, along with the rest of the ensemble. The opera itself is a bit of a mess, but the sheer ebullience of this scene is always irresistible—as it was on Tuesday night.

Other memorable bits included the delightful duet “We are Women” (from the 1989 version of Bernstein’s “Candide”) with Malliaras and Consamus, the charming “Duo de amor No. 3” from Daniel Catán’s 2010 opera “Il Postino” with tenor César Andrés Parreño as the titular postman Mario and soprano Erin O’Rourke as his soon-to-be bride Beatrice, and the touching farewell scene from Handel’s 1725 opera seria “Rodelina” in which Queen Rodelina (O’Rourke) bids a tearful farewell to her deposed husband Bertardio (mezzo Xiao Xiao in what was, in Handel’s time, a castrato role).

L-R: Amani Cole-Felder, Shavon Lloyd in "Wheels of a Dream" Photo: Jessica Flanigan

Other outstanding performers included mezzos Kaswanna Kanyinda and Rachel Barg, sopranos Chase Sanders and Leila Kirves, tenors Yuntong Han and River Guard, and baritone Kellen Schrimper. A shout-out is due as well to Cole-Felder as Sarah and Shavon Lloyd as Coalhouse in “Wheels of a Dream” (from Flaherty an Ahrens’s “Ragtime”). The balance with the band could have been better, but I really love that show and that song.

Not everyone was equally strong in every number and, as noted above, the orchestra sometimes overwhelmed the singers, but I don’t expect perfection from professionals in the early stages of their careers. Besides, the Center Stage evening is, at least in my view, as much a celebration of the future of opera as it is an homage to its past. A whale of a good time was had by all, both on stage and off, and that’s what counts.

If you missed this year’s event you can still, fortunately, see many of these performers in this season’s four operas, all of which have their final performances through Sunday, June 25. For more information, visit the Opera Theatre web site.