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La Bohème, Puccini
D: Laura Alley
C: Brian DeMaris
Passionate, joyful, sure to get stuck in your head: ‘La Boheme’ opens in Anchorage

Concert programming has long been a tricky art in and of itself. Organizations try to balance big ticket pieces (Beethoven’s Fifth, Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” or anything by John Williams) with more eclectic selections as to maintain modern relevance, but no matter the season, there’s always time for a classic like Giacomo Puccini’s “La Boheme.” Opera can be daunting for the uninitiated. The sets are lavish, the story fantastical and the language often foreign. While even the most committed opera fans can tire of a 12-hour Wagnerian tour de force, “La Boheme” is, in many ways, the Platonic ideal of opera. In just under two hours, and in four well-paced acts, the story is grounded, the characters are relatable and, although in Italian, the drama of Puccini’s score speaks a universal language. Stage Director Laura Alley has had a long relationship with “Boheme.” “Opera by definition is a compilation of the arts ... No matter how many times I’ve come back to (“La Boheme”), it never failed to make me cry. ‘Boheme’ became one piece that stayed with me,” she said. Mimi (Claire Kuttler) and Rodolfo (Peter Scott Drackley) in Anchorage Opera's "La Boheme." (Photo by Denny Wells) The opera is, in large part, lighthearted and joyous, but there is an undercurrent of uncertainty that persists through the work, all the way until the tragic and somewhat shocking finale. “Boheme” centers around four friends scraping by as the prototypical starving artists. The story follows Rodolfo (played in the Anchorage production by Peter Scott Drackley), Marcello (Luis Alejandro Orozco), Colline (Andrew Potter) and Schaunard, played by Eagle River’s very own Michael Tallino. Intertwined with the story of the four friends is the passionate love between Rodolfo and Mimi, played by Claire Kutter, and the volatile, fervent relationship between Marcello and Musetta, sung by Lindsay Ohse. Since its 1896 premiere, “Boheme” has endured as an audience favorite. Anchorage Opera joins such notable companies as the Metropolitan Opera and the Chicago Lyric Opera in productions of the Italian classic this year alone. It’s easy to understand why “Boheme” has found its way into the hearts of so many concertgoers through the years. At a recent preview event entitled “Take One,” members of the cast, in collaboration with chorus master Richard Gordon, performed short selections and some of the greatest hits from the opera. Coline (Andrew Potter), Shaunard (Michael Tallino), and Marcello (Luis Alejandro Orozco) being playful in Anchorage Opera's "La Boheme." (Photo by Denny Wells) The cast is phenomenal. Under conductor Brian DeMaris, who marks his fifth production with Anchorage Opera, the ensemble brings energy and precision to the score. Their artistic chemistry was readily apparent as they poke and prod, joke and embrace, riding the unpredictable and emotional operatic waves. The star of the evening, and she certainly wouldn’t let you forget, was Musetta. Expertly sung by Ohse, “Quando me’n vo” was intimate and seductive to the final chord. Puccini’s music is Italianate to the extreme, with expressive bel canto lines and sure-to-get-stuck-in-your-head tuneful melodies at every turn. The cast taps into all of the fun, friendship, love and loss that Puccini could tastefully cram into the piece. The magic of “Boheme” is that it really is for everyone. It represents Puccini at the height of his musical and theatrical powers. There are moments for laughter, moments for tears and plenty of beautiful music throughout.

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12 April 2019www.adn.comColin Roshak
Così fan tutte, Mozart
D: Crystal Manich
C: Brian DeMaris
Rain mars Mozart in the ruins by Mill City Summer Opera

Strange things can happen when you go to an outdoor opera performance. Halfway through Act One of Mozart’s “Così fan Tutte” at the Mill City Museum ruins in downtown Minneapolis on Sunday evening, a public address announcement cut into the music and called all the actors and musicians offstage. A few spots of rain threatened, but a shower failed to develop. Twenty minutes later the show restarted, without the orchestra, only to shut down again when some real rain fell. In the hourlong interval that followed, the singers moved indoors to the museum lobby, where they skipped the first-act finale and performed Act Two with a selection of props and a keyboard. It was a hugely frustrating evening for the Mill City Summer Opera singers, who coped gallantly with the constant interruptions. The 40 minutes of fully staged action in Act One had developed an intriguing momentum before the elements turned murky. This “Così” was the inaugural production of Mill City Summer Opera’s new artistic director, Crystal Manich, who updated the opera from the 18th century to 1940s Italy. In her reframing, the young blades Ferrando and Guglielmo are recently discharged soldiers returning to a town where bomb damage is evident and the inhabitants exude a zoned-out, post-traumatic languor. ADVERTISEMENT Their sweethearts Fiordiligi and Dorabella have an edgy appetite for the amorous excitements denied them during war, and are cruelly disappointed when their fiancés are apparently recalled to front-line duty. It’s all a grisly ruse, designed by Don Alfonso and the boys to test the girls’ fidelity in a thoughtlessly laid wager. Manich turns Don Alfonso into a disheveled ex-general with a drinking habit, who concocts the grubby scheme more out of boredom than any sense of malice. Baritone Andrew Wilkowske made an unusually sympathetic impression as Alfonso, somehow managing to suggest that for all his cynical maneuvering of the callow youthful lovers he is ultimately doing them a favor. He sang splendidly, and managed to survive the sweltering humidity in a distinctly unseasonal military uniform. Soprano Karin Wolverton and mezzo-soprano Sarah Larsen made a strong impression as Fiordiligi and Dorabella, deftly balancing the occasional frivolity of the characters with their deeper emotional complexities. Manich’s astute take on “Così’s” characters extended to Ferrando (Javier Abreu) and Guglielmo (Sidney Outlaw), who emerged as desperately immature and short of life experience, not deliberately cruel and unlikable. Before the orchestra packed up, conductor Brian DeMaris drew some warmly expressive playing at relaxed tempos, which gave welcome scope for the subtle nuancing of Mozart’s scoring to register. ADVERTISEMENT “Così fan Tutte” is the last show Mill City Summer Opera will be staging at Mill City Museum before crossing town to Paikka, a renovated industrial space in St. Paul’s Midway district, for its 2020 season. There, a roof is promised, with air conditioning for hot weather. Sunday evening’s doughty cast of performers could have done with both, as could the patient audience. Terry Blain is a freelance classical music critic for the Star Tribune. Reach him at artsblain@gmail.com.

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15 July 2019www.startribune.comTerry Blain