Love At First Sight

Chicago Opera Theater – Iolanta 

Long considered the Second City’s Second Opera Company, Chicago Opera Theater has spent the last year and a half regrouping. Many changes at the top of the company’s administration include the transition of Douglas R. Clayton from Executive Director to General Director following the departure of Artistic Director Andreas Mitisek, and the appointment of Lidiya Yankovskaya to the post of Music Director. With a compete revamping of its mission statement under the umbrella of the new Vanguard Initiative, COT moves into the position of Chicago’s First Opera Company for Living Composers. Of their refurbished focus, Clayton has this to say:

“With the Vanguard Initiative, COG is now officially the home for living opera composers in the city, where thrilling new operas composed for a 21^st century audience are premiering every season. COT also now ensures that top-tier works by beloved master composers are finally getting their Chicago premieres.”

Their 2018/2019 season champions every facet of this new focus, beginning with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s final opera, Iolanta, a sadly neglected work enjoying its first airing in Chicago. Music Director Yankovskaya, born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, steps to the podium for the first time with this opera, giving a generous accounting of an opera she has conducted many times. With a libretto written by Tchaikovsky’s younger brother, Modest, the piece explores the coming of age of a blind princess. Her blindness kept a secret from her by her father and his entire court, she finds herself longing for things of which she cannot speak, her blindness a metaphor for a lack of deeper connection to all of life’s riches. The King engages a fabled doctor who agrees to attempt to cure her, but only if she is told of her condition and deeply wishes the gift of sight. When her betrothed’s best friend accidentally stumbles into her rooms, he tells her of world, exciting both her soul and her heart. When the King discovers the unintentional rendezvous, he threatens to kill the interloper if Iolanta’s sight is not restored.

Based on the Danish play Kong Renés Datter by Henrik Hertz, Iolanta was given its debut in Saint Petersburg in 1892. At this time in history, the field of psychology was entering the public consciousness as a study of the mind’s potentials for both disturbances and for cure. It seems unlikely that Modest would not have been aware of, and to some degree have been influenced by, a growing body of psychological experimentation. Practitioners of hypnotism were offering cures for the body through mental suggestion; interest in astrology and spiritualism were reviving; Freud was busy in his laboratory, and American’s founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist Mary Baker Edy published her treatise on the spiritually-focused mind’s ability to discover and maintain health,  Science and Health with Keys to the Scriptures in 1910. In the 1845 play from which the libretto is derived, Princess Iolanta’s off-stage cure at the hands of the Moorish physician Ebn Jahai is left to the imagination as to the precise palliative, Scottish director Paul Curran’s use of symbols drawn on the body and clothing of the doctor Ibn-Hakia which become visible when the character is washed in blacklight might suggest some sort of tribal magic rather than science. Bass-baritone Bill McMurray gives a warm accounting of this character, although the character’s contribution creates an comfortableness in this construct, since we find here the only apparently African-American principal in the cast telling of his cure while swathed in fluorescent light showcasing glowing symbols drawn on his person; The mind jumps to the travesty of minstrelsy.

Curran’s team of Alan E. Muraoka (scenic design), Driscoll Otto (lighting and projection design) and Jenny Mannis (costume design) assist him in moving the action, replete with its kings and knights, to the mid 1900’s. With a bed, a chair, benches, occasional tables, and four, floor-to-ceiling periaktos spun by members of the cast, different spaces and the feelings they create are effectively indicated. Curran’s cast embrace a natural style of characterization that works very well for the relatively intimate space of Chicago’s Fine Arts Building’s Studebaker Theater. It is easy to see that Curran’s stated desire to showcase love in all its forms in this opera with neither a villain nor a death aria has informed his artistic process, as the simple furnishings and stagecraft support, rather than overtake, the character’s relationships.

Rightly so, it is the characters, as inhabited by the fine artists COT has gathered together for this important event, that are on display. Chicago-favorite, bass-baritone David Govertsen gives a multi-colored reading of the castle’s factotum, Betrand, his warm heart hiding behind the huff-and-puff of a “lion at the gate.” Mezzo-soprano Emma Ritter, a member of COT’s Young Artist Program, sings the conflicted nurse Marta, struggling to care for a Princess whose questions about the world must not be answered by royal decree. Baritone Christopher Magiera makes an auspicious COT debut as Duke Robert. His aria about his love for the Countess Matilde is a high point in the evening, as the emotion of his admission of a love that must prevent him from honoring his parent’s promise to marry Princess Iolanta bubbles with love’s sincerity. As Iolanta’s closest confidantes, soprano Katherine Petersen and mezzo-soprano Annie Rosen sing with great musicality and pleasing tone, clearly more than capable of more substantial assignments.

Russian bass Mikhail Svetlov is just the right age, given the continuum of the ages of the other players, to essay King René, and he mostly meets the challenge of portraying a character given to melodramatic outbursts while keeping within the world Curran has molded. The woof in his voice blusters nicely, and his ringing top voice is just what is wanted here. Only an old-school operatic gesture after the end of his aria jolts, reading as untruthful and self-serving. John Irvin shines in the role of Count Vaudémont, the Duke’s friend who falls unconditionally in love with the sleeping Iolanta, vowing to love her whether her sight is recovered or not. Irvin’s shiny tenor voice is as naturally offered as his emotionally-connected acting, with easy high notes in abundance. One looks forward to hearing him in the leading Rossini tenor roles.

But this starry evening’s crown must be rightly-placed on the brow of soprano Katherine Weber. As Iolanta, she is all innocence and yearning. While there is amply opportunity for overacting in this role, Weber is completely believable at every moment, the honesty of her portrayal anchoring a dramatic fable that could show as comic if the leading lady-assignment were placed in the wrong hands. Weber’s voice has been called “steely,” so I must gather that the critic in question was describing the core of the voice, which is rock-solid, giving her a projection that will allow her to easily carry today’s larger, American opera houses. At the same time, that cooper-color in the center of her voice is surrounded by a beautifully spinning resonance that defies easy description. Suffice it to say that part of Renee Fleming’s success is built on the fact that her voice is unique and immediately recognizable, and Weber’s voice is blessed with this same benefit.

Iolanta has never before graced Chicago stages, and it could be another lifetime before it does again. This makes it imperative for Chicago’s arts-loving community to turn out to see this charming piece of theatre, delivered by a newly invigorated Chicago Opera Theater. Later this season they will offer the Stefan Weissman/David Cote The Scarlet Ibis, Jake Heggie’s Moby Dick, and a concert performance of The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing by composer Justine F. Chen and librettist David Simpatico. With CPT Chicago Lyric Opera and the multitude of storefront opera companies at work in our city, Chicago’s operatic life is second to none.

Highly Recommended  

Reviewed by Aaron Hunt

 

Presented on November 10 at the Studebaker Theater, 410 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago

More information about Chicago Opera Theater is available at (312) 704-8414, or www.chicagooperatheater.org.

For more information about shows please visit www.theatreinchicago.org