Sunday in the Park with George is Stephen Sondheim’s most personal musical. A portrait of the artist as two young men, the story allows Sondheim to wrestle with the aesthetic questions he’s faced over his decades of creating music theater, but also to satirize the world surrounding the never pure process of creating art. The two men here are Georges Seurat, the very real post-Impressionist painter whose A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is a modern masterpiece. And his very fictional great grandson, George, a contemporary artist who approaches the Seurat obsession with “color and light” through elaborate laser light installations instead of pointillist canvases.
Regarded today as a great leap forward in musical theater—an embrace of fluid form in which music and drama are tightly integrated—Sunday in the Park is a daunting project that has been on Skylight Theatre’s wish list since Bill Theisen became Artistic Director. It’s lead roles—originated by Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters—are demanding for actors and singers. And the score is one of Sondheim’s most challenging.
But all that slips away when the lights go up—first on a blank canvas, then on the brightly colored landscape that will eventually become a life-size version of Seurat’s painting (beautifully realized by set designer Van Santvoord). Richard Carsey’s small orchestra was shimmery and evocative. And the lead performers quickly established their own take on their roles. Chicago actor and Broadway veteran Sean Allan Krill doesn’t have the operatic power or range of Patinkin, but he’s a great singing actor who captures the obsessive drive of Act One Georges, and the touching vulnerability of Act Two George. Alison Mary Forbes had charm to burn as Dot, Seurat’s mistress, and handled the rapid patter of Sondheim’s lyrics with great clarity. But this is only partially a star vehicle, and the Skylight ensemble latched well onto their 19th and 20th-century characters (the modern scenes are set in 1984, when the show was written) and brought gorgeous depth to the challenging choral writing.
Sunday in the Park isn’t the kind of show to send you humming at the end (though “Putting it Together” has great pop potential), but it is a gorgeous meditation on the creative process—acknowledging that “art isn’t easy,” but is still essential.
Arturo Chacón-Cruz in the Florentine Opera’s
“Idomeneo” (photo
by Kathy Wittman)
While the anxieties of Sunday in the Park are set in the glow of the bright Parisian sun, the look of Florentine’s production of Idomeneo is dark, brooding and altogether beautiful. British director John La Bouchardière turns Mozart’s Trojan War story into a dramatically compelling and sometimes touching meditation on the ravages of war and international politics.
With its drowning legions, vengeful sea monster, and pointed deus ex machina, Idomeneo is ripe for interpretations that skirt the opera seria traditions and make sense of it for contemporary audiences. The story–a little bit Abraham and Isaac and a little bit Romeo and Juliet–involves torn allegiances between countries—and between gods and mortals. Returning from battle, the Cretan leader Idomeneo is saved from drowning by Poseidon, but the god demands a sacrifice as well, that he kill the first person he sees when safe on shore. When that person turns out to be his son Idamante, the leader must choose between the personal and the political, finally agreeing to carry out the execution after his homeland has been buffeted by Poseidon’s wrath. All this is complicated by the forbidden love story between Idamante and the Trojan princess Ilia.
Perhaps taking cues from Peter Sellars’ much discussed production at Glyndebourne in 2004, John La Bouchardière evokes modern political tensions between Islam and the West, but only to make the conflicts of the play more emotionally resonant. This is an opera about war and politics, but it’s not about global machinations as much as the personal decisions of conscience made by flawed human beings. La Bouchardière sets his story on an existentially bare, black stage. Two large panels suggest locations, and serve as video projection screens for images that envision the thoughts and memories of the characters.
This setting adds a powerful dimension to Mozart’s gorgeous arias, which often involve what we would now call big existential questions: love or duty, family or country. Hearing them passionately sung against a dark empty landscape makes them all the more richer.
As does the impressive cast that the Florentine has assembled. Arturo Chacón-Cruz was a formidable Idomeneo, his voice reflecting both the power and tumult of his character. Mezzo Sandra Piques Eddy’s sound was robust and confident, perfect for the pants role as Idamante. Florentine favorite Georgia Jarman played the heavy villainess with glee, including a startlingly slinky daydream about her beloved Idamante. And coloratura Marie-Eve Munger brought lyrical elegance and vulnerability to Ilia. Joseph Rescigno lead the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, which played with vibrant beauty. And Scott Stewart’s Florentine Chorus, though at times ragged in attack and timing, brought richness to Mozart’s writing when necessary.
