Florida Grand Opera began its run of Donizetti’s Franco-Italian filigree The Daughter of the Regiment (choose whatever language you prefer) on Jan 7 at the Miami-Dade County Auditorium. The company will move, it’s promised, to it’s sumptuous over budget and behind schedule new house later this year.  The last time FGO performed this opera was in 1973.  Given the merits of the piece I don’t see why they were in such a hurry to bring it back. 

 NEIL A. KURTZMAN, MD

Florida Grand Opera's New La Fille du Regiment

he production was borrowed from the Opera Company of Philadelphia which ensured that the first act was set in the Tyrolean Alps and the second in the chateau of the Marquise of Berkenfeld as specified in the libretto.  I was hoping for the first act to be placed in a Bangkok brothel with Marie as the regimental whore and the second to be in a Shanghai cesspool with Marie buried in a mound of merde, but the director Dorothy Danner and the set designer Boyd Ostroff are Americans so I was out of luck.  But then again Robert Wilson is an American – I hear he’s working on a concept similar to the one above for one of the Berlin houses with the additional twist of substituting Berg’s Marie for Donizetti’s. (Marie the maidenly vivandière - quaintly translated as “mascot” in the surtitles.)  Okay the production’s square – even the time period was unchanged, but so what.  Nobody was there for the canvas back Alps.  It was high notes we wanted and we got a lot of them.  Still, couldn’t the 21st Regiment have been morphed into Imperial Storm Troopers?
            I’ve only heard this work on stage twice before, both times with Sutherland - once with Pavarotti and once with Kraus (Kraus was better).  I think I have now reached my lifetime allotment for this opera.  Anyway, Israeli soprano Chen Reiss, in her FGO debut, is no Joan Sutherland.  She’s in the school of steam whistle high sopranos exemplified by Lily Pons and Roberta Peters.  Some of Reiss’s notes were so high that there was a team from the county pound outside the hall to prevent stray dogs from entering during her solos.  She’s very young, pretty, pert, perky, peppy, bouncy, animated, chipper, etc. She was all over the stage acting her little heart out. After five minutes I craved Phenergan.  I never go to the opera without a few pills in my pocket, but had forgotten to take them.  Her vocal production was forced and her pitch sometimes approximate.  Despite the tenor’s two arias, this is the soprano’s opera and if she’s not satisfying there’s not a whole lot left.  My lukewarm reception to Reiss’s performance was not shared by the audience or the local press who were wildly enthusiastic about her.  I guess they didn’t forget to bring their Phenergan. 
            Tonio is a part that has everyone wondering before the performance if the tenor can manage the 9 high Cs of “Pour mon âme” without sounding like an agonal event.  Tenor John Osborn didn’t hit 9 high Cs, he gave us 11 or 12 and threw in a high D as a bonus.  All this while climbing up and down a ladder and balancing on a barrel.  His tone is pure light lyric with a brilliant full and focused top.  His is the perfect voice for all the tenor roles from Mozart through to Donizetti (Norma excepted).  He has everything needed to be a great tenor.   He’s short, pudgy, balding, and has scintillating high notes.  “Pour me rapprocher de Marie” showed he can also maintain a long line and sing with tenderness and beauty.   Where has this guy been since winning Placido Domingo’s Operalia in 1996?  I know where he’s been, but why isn’t he at the top?
            Beginning of digression.  To be successful in opera as in most anything else, with the possible exception of professional sports, you need backing as much as talent.  The support of an important conductor, a record contract, first rate management, and influential critics who take you on as a cause are what will get you to the top if you’re reasonably good. Would anyone remember John Sullivan were it not for James Joyce?  (If Sullivan’s name draws a blank, consult Ellmann’s biography of the author.)  Thus singers without important external support have relatively minor careers even if they’re exceptionally gifted.  Salvatore Fisichella and Fernando de la Mora are just two of many fine singers who didn’t have the success their talent deserved.  The kindness of maturity prevents me from naming any current singers having a bit more success than they might have had without major backing. 
            So let’s consider someone dead and who is the example par excellence of success beyond the limits of any possible talent or skill – Maria Callas.  Was Callas a better singer than Ponselle or Milanov or Price or Sutherland or Flagstad or Nilsson?  No.  Perhaps it was her stage presence.  I saw her on stage three times, yet the greatest singing actress I ever saw was Diana Soviero who almost no one knows and whose career was only moderately successful.  She had no big record contract, in fact none at all, no John Ardoin writing volumes about her, no Tulio Serafin to guide her, no super-star management, no sugar daddy, no Will Crutchfield to embellish a legend -  all she had was talent and it wasn’t enough.  Callas is great because everyone says she is, because she came along at a propitious time, and because the gods and the philosophers decreed it be so and it likely will always be thus.  She is as eternal as the moon. The only comparison with the Callas phenomenon is Elvis Presley.  Elvis is bigger than Callas solely because he made the brilliant career move of dying young.  More on art and its perception versus its reality in an upcoming article.  End of digression.
            Osborn is only 33.  Let’s hope it’s not too late for the success he deserves.  Let’s also hope he knows what opera he’s in.  He acted like he was playing Nemorino rather than Tonio.  His costume and deportment showed a goofy chubby guy who wasn’t quite sure where he was.  Well, he’s a tenor.
            Sulpice is a perfect role for an aging baritone.  First it was written for a bass so you don’t have to worry about high notes.  Next he’s on stage a lot but doesn’t have to sing very much allowing the performer to ham it up for an entire evening.  Timothy Nolen met the requisites for the role amply without making a pain in the ass out of himself.  Joyce Castle was sufficiently ditzy as the Marquise and Libby George was pleasantly pompous as the deliciously named Duchess of Krackenthorp.  Peter Leonard conducted as effectively as one can in a piece where the orchestra is playing cards half the time.
            The Daughter of the Regiment is an opera comique.  Thus there is a lot of spoken dialogue all in French spoken by a cast without one native French speaker to an audience that also likely didn’t have any native French speakers among it.  Furthermore the dialogue in the second act was extensively rewritten – in French.  Why in hell didn’t they do the opera in English or at least do the dialogue in English?  The rewrite added a lot corny topical jokes and changed the dénouement – sorry I couldn’t resist.  Captain Robert turns out to be not only Marie’s father by the Marquise, but also the Duke’s father by the Duchess.  The Duke (he’s the guy Marie’s supposed to Marry) makes an unscripted appearance on stage but he’s mute.  Hortensio, forget about who he is, switched the two Robert babies so that the Duke mistakenly was sent to a convent where he took a vow of silence while Marie was dropped off at the regiment where she became the mascot.  Reminds one of Il Trovatore.   Thus the two can’t make an incestuous marriage so the tenor gets the girl by default.  Maybe its better they did the piece in a language no one understood.
            In summary, the opera was moderately tuneful, the audience loved it (remember this is Miami), and the tenor was great – John Osborn.
             
           
           

---------

The Florida Grand Opera
La Fille du Régiment
7, 10, 13 15, 21 & 26 January 2006