Opera in the Heights / Reseñas

When Clara's hat blows off – in a delightfully surprising meld of projection and live action – she meets Fabrizio (ardent tenor Benjamin Lurye), and the couple are instantly smitten.

Giacomo Puccini's verismo-fueled Tosca (1900) runs on opera's highest octane – sex and violence. It speeds along, no time for detours, spinning its tale with a breakneck pace. Co-librettist Giacoso complained to the composer that there was nothing but plot, but Puccini knew exactly what he was doing when he secured the rights to Sardou's scandalous melodrama that had been written expressly for theater's great diva, Sarah Bernhardt. He knew a great story when he saw one. He urged his librettists to prune, cut, revise and get to the meat. He got what he wanted. No filler or fat, just juicy theater. Puccini even considered cutting Tosca's Act II's plea to God asking why He had allowed her to get into this compromising position, “Vissi d-arte” (I lived for love), because it stopped the flow of the story. Thankfully, he relented, and the aria became one of the most beloved, signature pieces in all opera. Light on spectacle, and with a greatly reduced orchestra and chorus, Opera in the Heights presents a highly-charged Tosca that roars down the highway on all cylinders. It's more intimate, for sure, which deepens the characters and pulls us right into the story. Thanks to Puccini, everything's so compact and elemental, the plot happens over a 24-hour period. Tosca is tightly-wound. Opera diva Tosca (soprano Elizabeth Baldwin) loves painter/political firebrand Cavaradossi (tenor Peter Scott Drackley). She is insanely jealous and assumes he's having an affair behind her back. High maintenance, she is easily manipulated by odious police chief Scarpia (baritone Kenneth Stavert), who's out to crush the underground revolutionary movement in which he suspects Cavaradossi plays a major part. The painter has indeed abetted the revolution's leader. OPERA Sex and Violence: Just Another Night at the Opera With Tosca D. L. GROOVER OCTOBER 6, 2019 8:19AM Elizabeth Baldwin as Tosca and Kenneth Stavert as Scarpia. Elizabeth Baldwin as Tosca and Kenneth Stavert as Scarpia. Photo by Pin Lim Giacomo Puccini's verismo-fueled Tosca (1900) runs on opera's highest octane – sex and violence. It speeds along, no time for detours, spinning its tale with a breakneck pace. Co-librettist Giacoso complained to the composer that there was nothing but plot, but Puccini knew exactly what he was doing when he secured the rights to Sardou's scandalous melodrama that had been written expressly for theater's great diva, Sarah Bernhardt. He knew a great story when he saw one. He urged his librettists to prune, cut, revise and get to the meat. He got what he wanted. No filler or fat, just juicy theater. Puccini even considered cutting Tosca's Act II's plea to God asking why He had allowed her to get into this compromising position, “Vissi d-arte” (I lived for love), because it stopped the flow of the story. Thankfully, he relented, and the aria became one of the most beloved, signature pieces in all opera. Light on spectacle, and with a greatly reduced orchestra and chorus, Opera in the Heights presents a highly-charged Tosca that roars down the highway on all cylinders. It's more intimate, for sure, which deepens the characters and pulls us right into the story. Thanks to Puccini, everything's so compact and elemental, the plot happens over a 24-hour period. Tosca is tightly-wound. Opera diva Tosca (soprano Elizabeth Baldwin) loves painter/political firebrand Cavaradossi (tenor Peter Scott Drackley). She is insanely jealous and assumes he's having an affair behind her back. High maintenance, she is easily manipulated by odious police chief Scarpia (baritone Kenneth Stavert), who's out to crush the underground revolutionary movement in which he suspects Cavaradossi plays a major part. The painter has indeed abetted the revolution's leader. RELATED STORIES Meet the Non-Diva Playing a Diva in Tosca at Opera in the Heights I SUPPORT Houston Press Houston Press LOCAL COMMUNITY JOURNALISM SUPPORT THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF HOUSTON AND HELP KEEP THE FUTURE OF THE HOUSTON PRESS FREE. SUPPORT US Scarpia's other motive is less political, he lusts after Tosca. As he sings in Act II, his credo is, to paraphrase, “so many women, so little time.” He arrests an unrepentant Cavaradossi, commands Tosca to appear at supper, and proceeds to torture the painter in her presence. Tell me what you know, he coolly seduces, while Cavaradossi screams from his cell. She pleads with the sadist for her lover's life. “Quanto? Quanto?" How much, she demands. “You” is his answer. Submit to me and I will let your lover go free. She's in love, what can she do? He writes out a safe passage for them, but he must pretend to kill the painter to allay suspicion. She relents. Scarpia rushes to embrace her. “Here is Tosca's kiss,” she howls, stabbing him with his own dinner knife. Dead though he may be, Scarpia's malicious influence infects the lovers. Cavaradossi's mock execution turns out to be the real thing. Swearing vengeance before God, Tosca leaps from the battlements instead of being captured by Scarpia's thugs. At the curtain, all three principals are dead. In every good melodrama, good intentions don't always prevail, fate intervenes in horrible ways, and irony raises its mocking face. Tosca has all of these, heightened into the opera pantheon by Puccini's lush chromaticism, his musical impressionism, his unerring sense of matching theatricality to music. For all the plot's cholesterol, Tosca's music seduces. Not many other operas can boast such a sparkling array of hit tunes: Cavaradossi's two stellar arias, “Recondita harmonia” (Strange harmony) and “E lucevan le stelle” (The stars were shining); Tosca's “Vissi d'arte;” the glorious processional, “Te Deum,” that chillingly contrasts against Scarpia's lust; the joyous “Vittoria!” that Cavaradossi and Tosca belt out to defy Scarpia. No wonder this is one of the world's most popular works. It's difficult to be subtle in Tosca. It's too primal, too grand, too Technicolor. It's just how we like it. Baldwin manages to portray this larger-than-life diva with surprising variety. She has a voice of steel, powerful and able to pierce through any thick orchestration, and yet capable of melting in ardor when in her lover's arms. Tosca has pride and vanity, but still has a heart of gold, naturally. And Baldwin shows us all this with her rich, deep soprano, with that perfect pitch and ability to land any high note without showing any effort at all. She's a fine actress to boot, even though it's difficult to swan about the small Lambert Hall stage. Scarpia's murder is beautifully handled (piercing red lights to punctuate her knife thrusts) – another apt touch from director Leslie Swackhamer) — and she even does a nifty suicide leap off the parapets. A trooper with shining voice.

I knew trouble lay ahead in Opera in the Heights' physical production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin (1879) when I saw the large portrait on the upstage wall. It resembles a propaganda recruiting poster from the early Stalinist era, a sort of Rosie the Communist Riveter. Against a red background, the unsmiling comrade, her hair wrapped in babushka, holds a rifle. It's quite commanding and forceful. What does this have to do with Tchaikovsky's adaptation of Pushkin's classic verse novel about dreamy romantic love butting against the reality of everyday? Well, nothing actually. That's the problem. Tatiana, the daughter of a country estate owner, lives in her world of romance novels. Innocent, she awaits her prince. When citified, bored Onegin is introduced to her, she is smitten instantly. This is her fate, she sings. Here is the man of her dreams. She writes an ardent letter to him, unburdening her heart and laying bare all her feelings for him. Unfortunately, he spurns her affections, humiliating her. He could love her as a sister, nothing more. Tatiana is crushed. At Tatiana's birthday party, Onegin brazenly flirts with best friend Lensky's fianceé, Tatiana's young sister Olga. He wants to tease Lensky for bringing him out to the burbs where the rubes live. Onegin's prank prompts Lensky's jealousy to flare into deadly fury. Rashly, he challenges Onegin to a duel. Onegin shoots him dead. Years later, Onegin, guilt-ridden but still bored with life, returns to Russia and meets Tatiana at a grand ball. No longer the young innocent dreamer, she is a grand lady, rich and sophisticated, married to an older honored soldier. Now, Onegin is smitten. He is in love for the first time in his dissolute life. He writes her an ardent letter declaring his undying love. But she, full of honor that Onegin can't fathom, rebuffs him. Though she still loves him, she will not soil her marriage vows. This, too, is her fate. And his. She banishes him from her life, leaving him utterly desolate and destroyed.

Armed with confidence and purity of tone, Cottarel’s wielded power lends to her delicateness. Her singing is thoroughly enjoyable and the expression of solid warmth is neatly articulated through her emotions.”