Opera starved TT flocks to ‘Sfumature d’Amore’By Anne Hilton Saturday, April 7 2007
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Don Alfonso (Rory Wallace, centre) bets Guglielmo (Raymond Edwards, right) and Ferrando (Nigel Floyd, left) that their girlfriends won't be faithful w...
THOSE who say Trinidadians don’t enjoy opera better eat their words. It was standing room only when Newsday attended the second performance on Friday March 30, and those who weren’t able to be there on either night were bitterly disappointed because there wasn’t to be a third or fourth performance of “S’fumatore d’Amore” in the Simon Bolivar Auditorium.
As one who travels enough to know the high standards of singing in the world’s great opera houses remarked, “You could close your eyes and think you were in one of the European opera houses,” others, who rely on DVDs of “live” performances of operas in Covent Garden, the Met and Glyndebourne, agreed. Admittedly there were minor glitches, but nothing to take away from the overall excellence in performance — and acting.
The excellence of the music was, of course, due to June Nathaniel, the acting to that stalwart of theatre, director Dr Helmut Hilwig, and comprehension in no small measure to MC Maurice Brash who gave the audience a succinct summary of what they were about to hear — and see — before the singers launched in arias, duets, trios and choruses in Italian, German and French.
In Cosi Fan Tutti I particularly enjoyed Rory Wallace as the mischievous Don Alfonso egging on the men to test their sweethearts, and the maid Despina, played by Tahirah Osborne; her “steups” as she brought in the coffee that, Brash explained, she’d like herself had the audience chuckling. One hopes to see more of this talented youngster.
What can one say of Natalia Dopwell and Lesley Lewis, of Raymond Edwards and Nigel Floyd that hasn’t already been said, and written in praise of their singing?
Sadly, a virus struck down Gillian Seecharan-Scott who wasn’t able to perform the promised “Un bel di Vedremo”(One Fine Day?) from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
The death scene from La Traviata was suitably dramatic; it was nice to see Fritz Nothnagel back on stage as the tragic, consumptive Violetta.
It was a surprise to find a man singing the role of Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro; the character, who is supposed to be a teenage boy in the throes of puberty in love with every woman in sight, is usually sung by a woman, but Kevin Yung, being a counter-tenor (the highest of the male voices) sang the part well, albeit with a slight problem towards the end.
The Magic Flute had a truly local touch in the Dragon, a Carnival character played by Curtis Blackman pursuing Prince Tamino in true Carnival style, including rolling in the ground — and then lying doggo while the three ladies try to revive Tamino. With such excellent performances all round one really shouldn’t single out Charis Sieunarine Thompson who sang “Mon Coeur s’ouvre a ta voix” from Saint-Saens’ Samson et Delila as the hit of the evening. Suffice it to say that as the applause finally died away Maurice Brash announced that there would be no encores that evening...
Lesley Lewis gave a very good account of her solo “O don fatale” from Verdi’s opera Don Carlos while Natalia Dopwell and Nigel Floyd singing, respectively, Margherita and Faust in Arrigo Boito’s Mephistopheles had some competition from the piano accompaniment which was, otherwise, very, very good indeed
Indeed, the performance itself wouldn’t have been possible without the sterling services of pianists, Sean Sutherland (Cosi Fan Tutti) and Jerome Dinchomg. The last piece, the chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Verdi’s Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzar) was sung with heart and soul by — the chorus, of course; then, to end the evening, two of the chorus unrolled a giant scroll with the Italian words that, with “Nessum Dorma” are tantamount to the Italian National Anthem.
Brash urged us all to sing along, which most did.
This brought tremendous applause and a standing ovation to end the evening as bouquets and small tokens of appreciation were distributed to all who took part. Once more, we regret there were only two performances, and are looking forward to more in the not too distant future, perhaps at Queen’s Hall? Or an entire week in the Simon Bolivar Auditorium?
