Taylor Raven / Arvostelut

Soprano Claudia Rosenthal, portraying Isacio’s daughter, Pulcheria, achieved the greatest balance between musical and dramatic interest. Her character, insulted by her fiancé Oronte’s pursuit of Costanza, became more complex over the course of the opera. Ms. Rosenthal achieved this maturation through her delivery — both comic and sympathetic — and her willingness to have fun with ornamentation. Those efforts sometimes compromised her technical output, but she took risks with the role and gave it a memorable portrayal. As Costanza, soprano Shannon Jennings had a bell-like, liquid tone but maintained a rather one-dimensional, anguished affect throughout the performance. Bass Andy Berry, playing Isacio, owned his character’s creepiness with a gravelly, buzzy tone. Two women portrayed Riccardo and Oronte, roles originally written for castratos. In the title role, mezzo-soprano Leah de Gruyl exhibited agility and separation through complicated vocal lines and delivered a fine, trill-filled love duet with Ms. Jennings, but her depiction could have benefited from more king-like charisma. Mezzo-soprano Taylor Raven’s rich, deep timbre suited the role of Oronte, but she, too, could have given a more nuanced portrayal. Brian Vu impressed in the small role of Berardo. The singers’ stamina and technical grounding was on display in the final chorus.

The company’s new production is part of its ongoing Second Stage project, which gives Pittsburgh Opera resident artists the opportunity to perform a contemporary American chamber opera. The two voices serve to present different parts of Hannah’s experience and psyche: She sneaks on a blouse while delivering newspapers as a young boy; she is admonished in school for her “girly” handwriting; she expresses discomfort sitting with the boys in a sex ed class; she is nearly assaulted as she tries to get into her car. Ms. Kaminsky’s tart and rhythmic score, largely centered on the viola, comments on the libretto with varied string textures. For example, nauseating glissandos accompany Hannah’s discussions of the dizzying effects of hormone therapy. The libretto, aided by insight from Ms. Reed’s own experience as a transgender woman, captures the dueling aspects of Hannah’s identity with sweetness and humor. Mr. Vu and Ms. Raven showcased those interior struggles with compassion and confidence. Singing together, they gave not so much love duets as self-love duets, the knotty forces of a complicated identity merging in a messy or touching way. Mr. Vu, whom I’ve often praised, continues to impress, and his performance gave me chills. The baritone maintained a gleaming character throughout various volumes and different parts of his range, expressing each line with a clear sense of purpose. His style was direct and his consonants were crisp, yet his performance still illuminated all the complexities of the character. The effect was like a simply constructed, beautiful sentence. Ms. Raven, who sang this role with Seattle Opera last year, delivered her part with power, most notably with a pulsating, silvery vibrato in the upper register. Her performance of the final aria allowed Hannah’s personality — funny, a bit self-deprecating and ultimately hopeful — to shine through, and that long finale also exhibited Ms. Raven’s stamina. At times, however, she could have extracted more colors from the middle of her range, and some of the intricate runs were muddled. The production’s only major blemish was the uneven performance from the string quartet, which featured four Pittsburgh Opera orchestra principals and was conducted by James Lesniak. The ensemble sounded underprepared; the players whiffed on some notes, were often out of tune and sounded dragged down by sluggish tempos. And they seemed uncomfortable with the score’s occasional extended techniques, such as the inaudible moments when they were supposed to hum or sing. The production was directed by Frances Rabalais, who drew out a fine rapport between the two singers but missed a few opportunities to set the actions contained in the libretto.