The San Francisco Opera's summer season opened last week with a tepid and carefully staged revival of Giuseppe Verdi's enduring classic "Rigoletto." The good-looking production, with striking designs by Michael Yeargan, is making a fifth appearance at the War Memorial Opera House after an absence of only five years. There are still many good reasons to bring the old favorite back, and chief among them is the opportunity to hear fresh talent in roles steeped in performance tradition and usually associated with more famous singers of the past.
Memories of Serbian baritone Zeljko Lucic in the last SFO incarnation may not be erased by Quinn Kelsey's current assumption of the title role, but the alumnus of the 2002 Merola Opera Program brings a markedly different dimension to Verdi's tortured character. The sheer power of his remarkably beautiful voice commands our attention and sympathy whenever he appears, and thankfully, that is most of the time. Fitted well in a modified costume (is Rigoletto's physical deformity now considered outre?) and employing subtle histrionics, Kelsey's anguished commitment and gorgeous tone meet the acting requirements, and he uses his relative youth to advantage.
In the dark but colorfully effective lighting by Gary Marder, it is never hard to locate the central character onstage, and outgoing music director Nicola Luisotti frames Kelsey's riveting performance (and everyone else's) with customary support. There are several other Merolini in the cast, and it speaks well of the SFO's admirable promotion of the successful program and its promising participants.
New Zealander and Samoan-born tenor Pene Pati (Merola 2013) is a second-year SFO Adler Fellow with another big assignment. His clear and pleasing voice is a bit small for the War Memorial auditorium, and his acting is bland. His imposing physicality fits the part better, and director Rob Kearley (SFO debut) sensibly positions him downstage for all of Verdi's biggest hits. Pati's turn with "La donna e mobile" (you're probably humming it right now) perks the audience, and electricity fills the air. If the young tenor is cautious with his characterization, at least it is in keeping with the new director's tweaking.
Maestro Luisotti is the real star of the performance, and if there is any lack of dramatic power onstage, listeners can still revel in his red-blooded and thoroughly idiomatic approach. We never cease to be amazed by Ian Robertson's SFO Chorus members, either. Kearley has given the nasty courtiers some amusing stage business, and they always sing exceptionally well. The choristers supply a much-needed sense of menace to the proceedings.
Making her SFO debut, soprano Nino Machaidze fully employs her impressive dramatic lyric coloratura range to imbue Gilda, Rigoletto's rather dimwitted daughter, with more depth than common. We always cut the poor girl some slack because, when she isn't locked up in the house, she only gets to go to church. It is another Verdian blow to organized religion, for that is where she meets the licentious Duke. It would probably be impossible to spoil the plot, but let's just say Gilda pays the price for her innocence. Machaidze makes us care and almost understand her blind devotion.
Characters in the subplot, involving the business-minded assassin Sparafucile and his honky-tonk sister Maddelena, are convincingly portrayed. Bass Andrea Silvestrelli and another Merola alum and recent Adler Fellow, mezzo-soprano Zanda Svede, do the hapless heroine in with chilling abandon. Silvestrelli's cavernous voice is especially well-suited, and Svede, looking uncharacteristically fresh-faced, still sounds appropriately ruthless.
Auckland news sources have called the marriage of "chart-topping tenor" Pene Pati to soprano Amina Edris (second-year SFO Adler Fellow) a "fairy-tale wedding." The talented couple got to share some more magic moments onstage in "Rigoletto." Amina sang the role of the Countess Ceprano. It was hard to pick her out in the murky lighting, but it added some charming back-story to the enthusiastically received opening night.
"Rigoletto" continues in summer repertory through Sat., July 1.