Matthew Haney / Recenze

Sarah Delaney Boyle created a set that summoned the splendors associated with Baroque opera. Massive gold towers and a sweeping garland made from the armor and weapons of the knights who had fallen for Alcina’s charms dominated the stage, while an orb suspended from above was the source of her magical powers. Caitlin Gotimer as Alcina triumphed, capturing the myriad emotions of the sorceress in a performance that was as vivid dramatically as it was vocally. Apart from a few high notes that were off the mark, she sang Handel’s vocal lines with sensitive phrasing and tasteful ornamentation. Equally winning, and perhaps just a little more delicious in her pert, enchanting characterization of Morgana, was soprano Natasha Wilson. The sparkle in her voice and eyes made Morgana more vixen than temptress, and every moment she was on stage was a pleasure. Antony Walker, the company’s music director, led a brisk, exciting performance by an ensemble drawn from the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra augmented by Chatham Baroque, a trio made up of Andrew Fouts (violin), Patricia Halverson (viola da gamba) and Scott Pauley (theorbo). In addition to performing as a trio, Chatham Baroque regularly collaborates with guest instrumentalists and vocalists in historically informed concerts of early music. Fouts served as concert master, providing bite and flourish to the ensemble with his incisive bowing, while Halverson and Pauley, joined by Mark Trawka on the harpsichord, provided the continuo. The trio of continuo players provided color, texture and depth to the musical fabric, especially Trawka’s judicious use of the lute stop on the harpsichord. Chief among the musical delights were the dulcet tones of the recorders and the excellent horn playing in the second part.

Chatham Ba­roque, Pitts­burgh’s early mu­sic en­sem­ble, bol­stered the Pitts­burgh Opera or­ches­tra to pro­vide sup­port and a more his­tor­i­cally in­formed ap­proach to the score. This col­lab­o­ra­tive en­sem­ble of about 25 play­ers, led by mu­sic di­rec­tor Ant­ony Walker, sounded well-matched on Satur­day, lux­u­ri­ant in some of the slower arias and swoop­ing and stir­ring in some of the more rous­ing tunes. A small note — the dry acous­tics of the CAPA au­di­to­rium made some ends of phrases sound abrupt; more ta­per on rest­ing notes might ease this is­sue. An­to­nia Botti-Lo­dovico was ob­nox­iously pet­u­lant in the pants role (a woman play­ing a man) of the en­chanted Rug­ge­rio. She con­vinc­ingly por­trayed his arc of re­demp­tion back to a more he­roic bear­ing and was a high­light in the sec­ond act aria “Verdi prati.” So­prano Cait­lin Go­timer as Al­cina was en­chant­ing as she moved from all-pow­er­ful witch to jilted lover, achiev­ing a piti­able sense of wretch­ed­ness in her later arias with a fraught, ex­cit­able tone. The set by Sarah Delaney Boyle ap­peared a touch cramped at the out­set but brought Al­cina’s is­land to life with ter­ri­ble gran­deur. Cos­tum­ing by Ja­son Bray was well-planned and played a vi­sual role in the char­ac­ters’ in­di­vid­ual pro­gres­sions, as did the richly var­ied light­ing by Nate Wheat­ley. As for the sing­ers and their or­na­men­ta­tion, Ms. Wil­son and Mr. Romero seemed to take to this nat­u­rally, and the oth­ers suc­ceeded to vary­ing de­grees. This isn’t ba­roque op­era as it would have been heard in the 1700s, but for an eve­ning on the town in Pitts­burgh, it’s a charm­ing win­dow to an­other style of op­era and a fine eve­ning’s en­ter­tain­ment.