Review- Florentine Opera

The stars were aligned at the Pabst Theater this weekend.
    The Florentine Opera’s production of Semele was imaginative, witty, gorgeous and even occasionally moving.
    That’s not faint praise for a baroque opera, particularly for an audience used to the steady diet of soaring arias saturated with breast-beating emotions. Baroque opera is built instead on winding, breath-robbing strings of rapid notes. There are gorgeous melodies to be sure, this is Handel after all. But songs like “Where‘er you walk” are more matter-of-fact and clean. Their emotional heft relies more on clarity and phrasing than booming, sing-to-the-cheap-seats firepower. That’s exactly what tenor Robert Breault gave the song, with beautifully sensitive accompaniment by the Florentine Orchestra, conducted by Jane Glover.
    Still, there were emotional fireworks aplenty. As Semele, Jennifer Aylmer waited until the end of the opera to distinguish herself, delivering her act three finale, “No, No, I’ll Take No Less” with dazzling virtuosity and fire, the Baroque equivalent to a stirring Italian bodice-tearer (or pre-parapet-leap farewell).
    The musicianship showed that this Semele was not all about the concept. But the emotional resonance of John La Bouchardiere’s staging was very much due to his ability to wed music and image. His production starts out with simple concert dress and folding chairs – looking like just another Handel Oratorio, perhaps. But Semele’s wedding-day hissy fit shatters the ceremony, and the drama is off and running. The celestial projections were a perfect backdrop for the scheming goddesses. But the real visual coup not starlight but flesh and blood – a huge close-up of Jove’s face, dripping in a rainstorm, which was both tender and terrifying. It was a sublime dramatic moment that showed how opera from centuries ago can still touch 21st-century hearts.

Photo by Richard Brodzeller for Florentine Opera Company © 2009.