March 02--With 10 performances remaining before Lyric Opera closes out its primary season, the company is finding that even a standard crowd-pleaser such as "Tosca" can no longer be relied upon to sell out the 3,400-seat Civic Opera House -- hence the blizzard of ads heralding the return of the Puccini favorite to the winter repertory.
Whether advertising alone will make people want to catch director John Caird's harsh, problematic production remains to be seen. Lyric may be counting on cast changes to bolster the box office; indeed, a new set of singers took over the three principal roles for the first time at Friday's performance.
It cannot be said the second cast -- headed by Hui He as Tosca; Jorge de Leon as Tosca's lover, Mario Cavaradossi; and Mark Delavan as their nemesis, Baron Scarpia -- was an automatic improvement across the board over the cast Lyric had fielded for the initial run in late January and early February, but the strong singing of Hui He made the show worth sitting through.
An experienced exponent of this touchstone Puccini role, the Chinese soprano had made a triumphant Lyric debut in 2012 as another self-sacrificing heroine, Verdi's Aida. Her ample, luscious, firmly focused voice had more than enough power to drive the big climaxes thrillingly, along with the ability to sustain the tender lyricism with a ravishing legato and delicate dynamic nuances. Everything built to a glowing rendition of Tosca's greatest hit, "Vissi d'arte," with gleaming top notes and the melting diminuendo Puccini asks for at the end of the aria, but which a lot of sopranos ignore. The aria drew a lusty ovation.
On the other hand, Hui spoke Tosca's line "Quanto? Il prezzo!" ("How much? "The price!") in her exchanges with Delavan's predatory Scarpia, rather than singing the words as the score specifies. Lyric's first Tosca this season, Tatiana Serjan, was Hui's superior on the temperament and pathos scale; the latter offered a kind of generalized characterization.
Perhaps with a co-star more musically and dramatically involved than De Leon, some -- any -- romantic chemistry might have been possible between this Tosca and Cavaradossi. But the Spanish tenor, who was making his Lyric debut, was a wooden actor who pushed his dry, narrow-bore tenor so that the sound took on a bothersome beat whenever he was singing full voice. He shouted his way through the painter's two arias, neither of which carried much emotional specificity. Brian Jagde, who had stepped in at short notice as Cavaradossi earlier in the run, was superior in every respect.
A seasoned Scarpia, Delavan seized the role of Scarpia in his teeth, bringing the sadistic police chief (in Caird's bizarre interpretation, he's a thuggish mafioso who trades in looted art works) to snarling life. Delavan's solid baritone now sounds somewhat worn, and climaxes were bellowed more than they were sung; still, he made a credible archvillain, which is more than one could say about his alternate in the first round of "Tosca" performances, the blank Evgeny Nikitin.
Dmitri Jurowski's conducting felt more settled in, more engaged, than before, even if there were lingering problems of coordination here and there. Chicago Symphony Orchestra Music Director Riccardo Muti was attending what a Lyric spokeswoman said was his first-ever Lyric performance. Muti was seated in the first row, only a foot or two from the orchestra pit. One couldn't help wondering what this master of Italian opera felt about the performance. I was discreet enough not to inquire of the maestro.
Lyric Opera performances of "Tosca" continue through March 14 at the Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive; $34-$244; $20-$40 children; 312-827-5600, lyricopera.org.
Ferris Chorale soars
Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti was roughly a contemporary of Puccini's although he outlived his countryman by 44 years. Pizzetti railed against what he considered to be the melodic and emotional excesses of Puccini's music and others of the verismo school, espousing a more austere style that harkens to Renaissance polyphony and Gregorian chant. His idiom finds its greatest expression in his impressive body of a cappella choral works.
One of Pizzetti's finest masterpieces for unaccompanied chorus, the 1922 "Messa da Requiem," was one of two sorely neglected Italian requiems from the early 20th century that made up the fascinating program presented by the William Ferris Chorale on Saturday at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood.
The Pizzetti work, billed as a Chicago premiere, was paired with a requiem even choral buffs probably have never heard of, much less heard: Bonaventura Somma's "Missa Pro Defunctis" (1917), in what was billed as its American premiere. Both requiems were given in memory of tenor John Vorrasi, the chorale's beloved co-founder, longtime general manager and artistic director, who died of leukemia on Feb. 23.
Why neither the Pizzetti nor the Somma requiem is not more widely known is a mystery, since both of these liturgical works are full of inspired music; that much was made abundantly clear by the fervent performances Paul French drew from the 24-voice chamber choir. This is precisely the sort of important esoterica the chorale's namesake founder-director, William Ferris, devotedly championed. Now in his 10th season as music director, French is carrying on the Ferris tradition splendidly.
For certain he has lifted the chorus to a higher level of musical and technical proficiency than I can recall from more than three decades of covering the group -- indeed, I'm not sure any previous incarnation of the Ferris chorale could have executed, say, Pizzetti's tricky "Die irae" section so precisely, with altos and basses intoning the medieval plainchant, accompanied by the wailing melismas of sopranos and tenors.
The Somma requiem, with its gently interweaving melodic lines poised over a lush harmonic foundation of low male voices, owes much to the late-romantic manner of his teacher, Ottorino Respighi. But it, too, is beautifully made and most affecting in its sincerity and devoutness of expression. The chorale's account, richly resounding within the church's enveloping acoustics, made you wonder why nobody performs Somma's music -- even, apparently, in Italy.
jvonrhein@tribpub.com
