Opera Saratoga rounded out its abbreviated season with Teleman’s “Don Quichotte at Camacho’s Wedding,” a light and charming one-act opera performed under a pavilion in Spa State Park. Singing in an English translation, the eight-member cast brought clarity, presence and a touch of melodrama to the proceedings.
Smerud was excellent as the sad-faced, hapless Sancho. He was the most at ease on stage, and his bass-baritone was ideally suited to capture Sancho’s many moods and to give voice to the vivid description of past exploits that Telemann depicts so brilliantly in the music, especially the ups and downs of a ride on a magic carpet. Truth be told, Smerud would have made just as fine a Don Quixote with minor tweaks of character and costume.
Opera need not be opulent to be marvelous. Opera del West, helmed by Eve Budnick, brings fully staged—if fringe—opera to the Metro West area of Massachusetts and provides a space for young professional singers to tackle exciting roles. Between August 9 and 11, the company, under the insightful direction of Rebecca Miller Kratzer, picked up their ladders, tulle, and sparkly shoulder pads and transported their production of Cendrillon, by Jules Massenet, to the Boston Center for the Arts (BCA).
