BWW Reviews: Puccini's LA RONDINE is a Winner at Opera Theatre of St. Louis

Giacomo Puccini is the unrivaled master of romantic melody. His all too rarely seen opera, "La rondine", has opened in a beautiful production at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. I've been waiting for this for years, my heart having been captured early by one lilting, gently syncopated romantic waltz refrain that recurs again and again like the memory of a distant sweet infatuation. It is the very essence of Puccini.

The plot has hints of Verdi's opera, "La traviata." Both works show a beautiful Parisian courtesan fleeing her glittering demi-monde to find a life of simple true love. Each lady becomes persuaded that revelation of her scandalous past would be devastating to her lover's respectable family. In "Traviata" Violetta ("la dame aux camélias") ultimately dies, while in "Rondine" Magda, like a swallow, returns whence she had come - to the life of the kept woman of a wealthy banker. Which of the two endings, I wonder, is sadder?

Corinne Winters gives us a physically and musically beautiful Magda. In her lower range her powerful voice is rich and luscious. The highest notes are true, but they are at the very edge of her tessitura - her vocal "sweet spot" - and they are not quite effortless. As the evening went on they seemed easier and easier. Her vowels have a warm, dark shade which is musically lovely, but from time to time it poses a small problem in our understanding of the lyric (which, as in all OTSL productions, is in English). I think I might term Ms. Winters a lyrico-spinto soprano, for her voice has that wonderful quality of cutting cleanly through orchestra, chorus and all, so that whenever she sings it is she whom we hear.

Ruggero, Magda's lover, is sung by Anthony Kalil. He is indeed a talent to be watched. His voice is strong, true and easy. It is unchanging in timbre from the lowest notes to the very top of his range. His diction is flawless. When Ruggero sings one never, never has to look at the supertitles.

Magda's maid, Lisette, is a delightful role. Sydney Mancasola sings Lisette, and she nearly stole the show for me. Her performance is strong, bright and sassy - filled with enormous confidence. Her voice is sweet and clear and her diction superb. In the end Lisette, whose theatre career was a one-night catastrophe, also becomes a swallow, returning to her home as Magda's servant.

Prunier is a poet, and his romance with Lisette is a comic spatful counterpart of that between Magda and Ruggero. He naggingly instructs Lisette in how to behave, how to dress, how to use make-up, how to present herself - as his lady, and as a performer on the stage. John McVeigh sings Prunier. His voice is not terribly powerful, but it is a fine one, and he delivers that celestially high note with such grace and beauty. His comic sense is perfect for the role.

Baritone Matthew Burns sings beautifully as Rambaldo, Magda's banker lover.

The entire cast are excellent. And, by the way, all of them - save Mr. Kalil - are past or current members of Opera Theatre's Gerdine Young Artist program. This is a remarkable testimony to the success of this training program.

The libretto is workable, but the translation is not particularly deft. Occasionally there is the odd musical stress on what seems the wrong syllable. Would the story be more persuasive in the original? Perhaps. These gigantic operatic emotions are simply more comfortable in Italian than in English. All those final vowels - so open to let the heart gush forth.

Stage director Gieleta handles the large cast gracefully, with careful detailing of each chorus member, though a time or two his blocking of the principals doesn't match what they're saying in the lyric.

The scene design, by Alexander Dodge, is beautiful but curious. Before Acts One and Two the lights rise on a beach chair with an umbrella. Then these are whisked away before the act starts. These beach acoutrements belong properly to Act Three, which is set at Nice on the Riviera. What are they doing in Acts One and Two? The first act setting - a dinner in Magda's Paris salon - has a vast paneled rear wall with one oddly lonesome painting. There is an ambiguous blue shoulder-high stripe around the entire set. Is it wainscoting? No. Ah, yes! It's the sea - its horizon exactly matching that in the empty sea-scape of the painting. Odd. Distracting. Is this an opera about the sea? Act Two is a beautifully detailed, cozy Paris nightery, but the dance floor is too cramped to permit the expansive waltzing that should be done.

The small thrust platform center-stage makes even the curtain call awkward.

The abiding "seascape" concept does more to display the designer's cleverness than to support the drama. Such a concept, I think, merely shows a designer marking his territory.

Costumes, by Gregory Gale, are in general beautiful, but why does Magda, the glorious courtesan, wear gray at her dinner? She should be the orchid in this flower show. And why, when, disguised as a grisette to revisit the scene of her first romance, does she wear simple black?

"La rondine," or "The Swallow," had a checkered beginning: it was commissioned by an Austrian theatre, but Puccini rejected the first libretto, which would have made the work an "operetta." World War I delayed its premiere until 1917. Moreover, Puccini's life-long publisher and friend, Giulio Ricordi, had died. Giulio's successor at the firm was his son, Tito, who disliked Puccini. Tito rejected "La rondine" as "bad Lehár" and publicly scorned the opera - a taint that has never quite gone away. Puccini revised the work several times and was still working on it until his death in 1924. What a shame that it is so infrequently produced, for it offers some of Puccini's loveliest work - from an animated, almost "travelling" song at the opening dinner, to a gorgeous quartet, to a soaring passionate duet in which Ruggero pleads with Magda not to leave him.

In this production conductor Stephen Lord leads his singers and musicians to delicious perfection, often honoring Puccini's sentiment with lovely, deliberate rubato which makes our mouths water with anticipation for a resolution or for the completion of a phrase.

Opera Theatre of St. Louis presents this splendid opportunity to Puccini lovers. "La rondine" continues through June 28.

For more information visit www.opera-stl.org.

Photo credit: Ken Howard

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