Menotti, Ravel frolic at Mahaiwe

by Simon Wainrib

BERSKHIRE RECORD

For the Berkshire Opera’s second event of their current season, nine superbly talented members of the company’s Resident Artist program sing, dance, emote and cavort on the stage of the Mahaiwe through two one act operas – Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Old Maid and the Thief” and Maurice Ravel’s “L’Heure Espagnole” – with a zest and exuberance that is full of promise for these young artists at the threshold of their career.

The Menotti opera was originally written for a radio broadcast (going back to good old days when our home radio sets would provide such artistic gems) so that the staging would require special ingenuity to place the action into its many different locations, from drawing room to kitchen to bedroom and even into the street and to the local liquor store. Dipu Gupta designed a multi-layered set that met admirably all these requirements. But it was the cast of four characters that had to fully convey the complex mood of this “grotesque comedy” (Menotti’s own description of his libretto)...

Gregory Keller, a newcomer to the staff of Berkshire Opera, directed the four characters in and out of their problems with a wit and cleverness that matched the sophistication of the set. Kathleen Kelly directed the music from the piano, assisted by Ho-jeong Jeong on a second piano and Paul Chuey on percussion.

I had seen Maurice Ravel’s “L’Heure Espagnole” many years ago at the Paris Opera in what I thought was a great production, which in no way prepared me for the extravagant spectacle created by Berkshire Opera on the stage of the Mahaiwe. The modernistic, abstract set of the clockmaker’s shop in a small Spanish town where the facetious romp takes place, is dominated by two large grandfather clocks who will play an essential part in the imbroglio created by the clockmaker’s wife as, in the one night of the week where her husband is absent to regulate the “municipal” clocks, she expects to see her weekly lover for a fiery encounter...

Here again, Keller’s direction was exquisite and the singing, acting and dancing superb by a cast headed by Claire Molloy as the lively wife, the dumb but rugged muleteer enacted by Marc P. Callahan, the two ineffectual lovers impersonated by Jason Lester and Karim Sulayman, and finally the deceived but happy husband played by Lee A. Steward.

Strong kudos were deserved by the three instrumentalists, and primarily Kathleen Kelly their leader who executed the complex and lush Ravel score in this highly reduced form with appropriate finesse and wit.

Fresh Talent on Display

by Richard Houdeck

THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE

GREAT BARRINGTON – A singular joy for opera lovers involves those special occasions in which the great artists perform the roles that they have claimed as their own. Still, considerable delight also lies in the discovery of new, young singers as they ascend the ladder of opportunity, hopeful of great lyric-theater careers.

Nine of these hopefuls are displaying their singing and acting talents this weekend at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center as current members of Berkshire Opera’s Resident Artists Program. They are appearing in a double bill of Gian-Carlo Menotti’s “The Old Maid and the Thief” and Maurice Ravel’s “L’Heure Espagnole,” two one-act comedies that fit snugly into the opera company’s theme for summer, “Amorous Escapades.”

Both operas are inherently funny, and Gregory Keller, in his staging, has taken advantage, in each case, of that built-in merriment, while Dipu Gupta has provided stylish settings, especially for “L’Heure.”

...Gupta’s set offers a series of fascinating moderne monoliths, two of them representing large opened-back grandfather clocks into which the two lovers are able to disappear from view at opportune moments, but portable enough for Ramiro to carry on his back to Concepción’s presumed second-floor bedroom.

Ravel’s score, like much of the composer’s music, is especially congenial to keyboard interpretation, and Kathleen Kelly, the conductor, adapted that score deftly for an ensemble in which she was joined by two versatile instrumentalists returning this year – her fellow pianist Ho-jeong Jeong, a resident artist, and percussionist Paul Chuey. The singing in ‘L’Heure” also was some of the best the evening had to offer.

...Described by Menotti as “a grotesque opera for radio in 14 scenes, “The Old Maid and the Thief” was commissioned by NBC radio and made its debut on that network in 1939. Gupta invested his set for the opera with a radio ambience, including the front door, which could have come out of the sound-effects department of any studio in the golden days of the medium.

...In one of the best scenes devised by Keller with Gupta’s lighting design, Miss Todd, a local temperance leader, after learning that Bob wants something to drink, decides that it is better to steal from the local liquor store than to be seen buying it. Sato and Stuart make their way, with flashlights, from the stage through the pit up to the stage left box, where the liquor is displayed. It is a delightful scene, well timed, and in the best tradition of opera buffa.