Lauding Ataneli: Rigoletto at the San Diego Opera (28, 31 March 2009)

Saturday night saw the opening performance of Verdi's Rigoletto in San Diego. Having been furnished with a free press ticket to the show courtesy of the San Diego Opera, yours truly invaded the auditorium-ful of well dressed opera goers and was in for a very entertaining night out at the Civic Theater.

Based on Francesco Maria Piave's adaptation of Victor Hugo's play, Le roi s'amuse, the story is a sort of (im)morality tale about how one's capricious deeds have a way of boomeranging to its dispenser. Rigoletto, the hunchbacked with a vengeance court jester in the service of the deplorably philandering Duke of Mantua, has a beautiful young daughter, Gilda, whom he keeps overly secure at home. Rigoletto's bad habit of making fun of others' sufferings, however, earns its comeuppance when both he and the Duke are cursed by the distressed Count of Montenerone, whose daughter had been the (ig)nobleman's recent conquest. Karma and bad vibes conspired with an opportunistic bout of mistaken identity and the court jester finds himself jested while attempting to engage in another malicious jest on another. Jostled out of her previous bliss of innocence both helplessly and voluntarily, Gilda is faced with the decision no daughter should have to make. It is a darkly ironic story beautifully set to the young Giuseppe Verdi's sparklingly spooky music.

This 1851 opera has the best of both music and drama. It is pretty much a bel canto work with set arias and loads of melody along with dramatically well developed orchestration. Even non-opera fans would be familiar with at least 2 major arias from it. Click here for a good overview of the opera courtesy of Dr. Nick Reveles & the San Diego Opera.

Edoardo Müller conducts the San Diego Symphony Orchestra & the San Diego Opera Chorus
Cast: Lado Ataneli (Rigoletto), L'Ubica Vargicova (Gilda), Giuseppe Gipali (Duke of Mantua), Arutjun Kotchinian (Sparafucile), Kirstin Chavez (Maddalena), Scott Sikon (Count Monterone), Joseph Hu (Borsa), Malcolm MacKenzie (Marullo)

The whole was greater than the sum of its part with the opening night performance of Rigoletto at the Civic Theater. The old production from the New York City Opera (NYCO) is beautifully refitted by Carl Toms who also designed the beautiful period costumes. The performances was directed by Lotfi Mansouri, who did his best to use the entire stage (there are 3 sets) while keeping the focus on the singers. Even though Saturday was the first show of the run the cast was so well rehearsed the acting could have passed for something that had been on stage for at least a week already. Surely a result of good direction!

On the singing front, Lado Atanelli was a robust-voiced Rigoletto who carried the show from start to finish. He had some minor pitch problems in the lower part of his range, but the middle and top were in excellent shape. It is nice to hear someone who is such a good musician that he refrained (well, mostly, he did hold a few forte high notes a bit indecently long, but then this is an early Verdi bel canto-ish opera, so that isn't exactly a crime worth prosecuting) from just showing off his sonority. Instead, he skillfully used dynamic variations to shape Rigoletto's musical line, making the wretched character very sympathetic both theatrically and vocally. Considering that this is an opera where the show's best known arias goes to other characters, it is remarkable that Atanelli was the only performer to earn an un-hesitated and unanimous standing ovation from the San Diego audience at the curtain.

As his daughter, Gilda, is the silver-voiced L'Ubica Vargicova, a beautiful slender woman who made the most of her role despite of some technical problems in her singing. The voice took a while to warm up (she started hitting her stride right around the Act I duet with the Duke) with the lower notes being rather weak at first. The high notes were secure, though there was a quick vibrato that could sound like she was trilling on held notes... and the scaling runs during her 'Caro nome' were rather poor. That said, her assets outweighed her flaws. The piano singing was beautiful, she made very musical use of dynamic shifts and was really at her best in the ensemble numbers. A first rate Gilda she may not have been last night, vocally, but as a singing actress she was convincing and very believable.

The role with the most popularly known music to sing is, of course, the utterly immoral ladies' man, the Duke of Mantua, sung here by the rather obviously unamplified Giuseppe Gipali. It was my first experience with him and I was quite startled to hear how nearly inaudible he was... from the middle of the Orchestra Level (the middle balcony usually have better acoustic than down here, but I wondered if he was audible at all to the folks in the Dress Circle or the Side Balconies). Real kudos to the cast and the conductor for the really admirable work of scaling their volume way down when singing with this Duke and for turning the Act III quartet and trio into the real highlights of the show - gorgeous blending of voices and instruments! Mr. Gipali did sound better and sang much louder during the final act (and he acted well), though I'm afraid, at least for a hall as big as the San Diego Civic Theater is, his voice is just too small for this role.

In the minor roles, Martha Jane Howe made the most of her short role of Gilda's maid, Giovanna - able to get a lot of acting across without actually moving much. Scott Sikon's Montenerone displayed a good stage presence though perhaps didn't have enough stage time to warm up his low notes. The voice had such a prominent (and rather wide as to almost be a wobble) vibrato that made him sound like a quaking jello, but it somehow worked well for his role as a father quaking in anger while delivering the curse that set the story moving. Arutjun Kotchinian was an imposing figure onstage (he is very tall!), and his dark bass made for a good hired assassin, Sparafucille. Rounding off the good supporting cast was Kirstin Chavez's Carmen-like Maddalena. A real femme fatale that really contrasted well against Ms Vargicova's Gilda.

Maestro Edoardo Müller and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra were stellar from the orchestra pit, setting a crisp pace that moved the show along while being very supportive of the singers. They almost made Verdi sound like Johann Strauss, Jr (though tempered with a real Verdian sense of drama)! A special kudos also to the first violin for some seriously beautiful playing especially during the first act. Rigoletto only require a small male chorus, and the men of the San Diego Opera Chorus were a delight to listen to.

At roughly 2 3/4 hrs, this is a good show to attend even for those who are new to the operas. During this run we are even treated to an open curtain set change between Acts I and II, something I enjoy watching immensely. It is good to be able to glimpse at some (usually) behind the scene coordination efforts that go into making an opera performance work. There was some unfortunate glitches with the sur-title (the translated English subtitle projected above the stage) which went dead for much of the 2nd Act.

The biggest glitch of the night, however, actually came from the audience's side of the orchestra pit. So... for those attending later shows, please, please, please.... WAIT UNTIL THE MUSIC HAS STOPPED BEFORE CLAPPING! With the exception of the Duke's famous Act III 'La donna e mobile' (which is done after his last held high note), the 'songs' in this opera ARE NOT done with until the final note from the orchestra has sounded. I didn't pay for a ticket and so it didn't hurt me that much to miss a few of Gilda's final lines in the last part of her big aria, but those music lovers who paid for their seats last night had my sympathy. That was the worst occurrence of persistently ill-timed and overly premature clapping by an opera audience I've ever heard. Wait until the music has stopped, then you can applause with gusto and everyone will love you for it.

Edited 1 Apr 2009:
Well, I like Rigoletto so much I bought a ticket to the 2nd performance yesterday (31 March). This time enjoying the better acoustic of the upper balcony instead of down in the orchestra level. I'm happy to report that Lado Atanelli proves a reliably good Rigoletto who gave another commanding performance (even cleaner on this 2nd night than the first).

And Giuseppe Gipali must have gotten some feedback about his singing volume since Saturday since his Duke of Mantua came out Tuesday determined to sing louder. I wondered if the poor acoustic of the orchestra level made him sound smaller than usual, but when he relapsed in places on Tuesday into his normal volume it was clear that the voice really is rather small. The men's chorus really have got to dial back its volume when they sing with him since they completely covered the poor guy on Tuesday night in a not so gentle manner. It was like listening to a roadkill in action.... just completely flattened the lead tenor! Goodness knows Mr. Gipali tried hard to survive it, but I wouldn't really like him to have to push that beautiful voice too much. When he went into the triple forte neighborhood (for his voice size) the voice betrayed a little strain and the time delay on his portamenti (a bit of a scoop into the high note) became really big.... and that was a weird effect to hear how long it took before the desired note actually turned up (once it did it sounded great, though). At any rate, he was better received by the audience on Tuesday than on opening night.

The strange thing was... somehow L'Ubica Vargicova's Gilda was also singing louder last night (nobody was complaining about her voice size -at least not that of its upper register- on Saturday), and I found myself wishing that she would sacrifice some of that volume for more subtlety... besides, the low notes were still weak and the louder upper register just made the volume difference more pronounced. She was also having some problem with her breathing, with each gasping for air being rather loudly audible, coupled with some loss of focus on her high notes (it got rather hard to tell just which note she was singing sometimes)... Her big aria, Caro nome, only gathered a polite round of applause from the usually enthusiastic San Diego audience. If she was indisposed, there wasn't any announcement about it.

Everything else was fine. I think.... except for the sur-title that still went dark for long stretches of the show. Even the audience was better about not clapping before the singing was done (though there were still a band of overeager folks down in either the Mezzanine or the Loges who still tried to lead the applauding before the orchestra was done with the arias)... O, and a ringing cell phone during the third act was a bit obnoxious, too. You guys... there is a certain code of conduct good opera fans observe when attending a live performance you should brush up on once in a while. Please. Some people who attend these show spent upward of $100 they can hardly effort just to be able to hear Verdi's sublime music live perhaps just once in their life. Really... Silence is golden... unless it's time for clapping!

Remaining performances of Rigoletto at the San Diego Civic Theater: April 3, 5 (m), 8.
Next up at the San Diego Opera:
Apr 18, 21, 24, 26: Britten's Peter Grimes: Steuart Bedford/ Anthony Dean Griffey (Peter Grimes), Jennifer Casey Cabot (Ellen), Rod Gilfry (Cpt Balstrode)
May 9, 12, 15, 17, 20: Puccini's Madama Butterfly: Edoardo Müller/ Patricia Racette (Cio-Cio-San), Carlo Ventre (Pinkerton), Malcolm MacKenzie (Sharpless), Zheng Cao (Suzuki)

My reviews of previous shows at the San Diego Opera: Le nozze di Figaro (SD Opera 2007), Maria Stuarda (SDO 2008), Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci (SDO 2008), Aida (SDO 2008), Les Pecheurs de Perle (May 2008), Tosca (SDO 2009), Don Quichotte/Don Quixote (SDO 2009).