King for a Day

Boston has a new opera company! Odyssey Opera has risen from the ashes of Opera Boston, and they have made it their mission to avoid competing directly with Boston Lyric Opera. Their approach is twofold: first, to present concert versions of works too big to stage in Boston. Last fall their inaugural production was Richard Wagner's early opera Rienzi, a bombastic pageant that blew the roof off New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall. See my past report, Wagner and bagpipes.

Odyssey Opera's second approach is to present fully staged productions of lesser-known works in the operatic repertoire. Witness tonight's Un giorno di regno (King for a Day), Giuseppe Verdi's second opera, performed with sets, costumes and orchestra at Boston University Theater. This early attempt at a comedy was such a flop at its 1840 premiere that the devastated young Verdi vowed to give up opera completely. Of course, he went on to write several dozen more operas, most of them successes, even triumphs. But it was not until his last one, Falstaff, that Verdi would return to a comedy, some 53 years later.

The two comedies share a surprisingly identical subplot: Giulietta/Nannetta is in love with Edoardo/Fenton, but her father (Kelbar/Ford) is forcing her to marry an undesirable codger (La Rocca/Dr Caius). It is only through the cunning of The Pretend King Stanislaus/The Merry Wives of Windsor that the men are foiled and the young lovers united. There all similarity ends. Where Falstaff is a masterful interweaving of melody, character definition and action, Un giorno di regno is a forced plot with vague characters singing stock vocal numbers. Verdi admitted that among the texts he was offered at the time, each one worse than the next, this libretto was the least bad.

Back to the plot: there is a second member of the extended Kelbar household, the Marchesa del Poggio, who is also to be married to yet another unwanted suitor. As the Marchesa, soprano Amy Shoremount-Obra brought a welcome combination of comic sass and vocal acrobatics to shine in her role. She gamely sang her first aria behind the modesty of a bath towel, and earned a good dose of laughter when a tightened corset propelled her voice into its topmost reaches.

As for the rest, it was best to leave the plot behind and just take in the show as a musical event. There is something pleasing about hearing unamplified voices singing over acoustic instruments. Veteran baritone James Maddelena's upper register is showing its wear, but he had a quick patter passage that was brilliant. Conductor Gil Rose was a secure anchor in the pit, and Odyssey Opera will be in good hand with him at the podium.