Life and death are on stage in ?Broadway opera? ?Street Scene,? getting its CCM Opera debut in a ravishing and engrossing production conducted by Mark Gibson and directed by Steven Goldstein. It plays through Sunday.
Like better-known ?Porgy and Bess,? ?Street Scene,? from 1947, is a slice of American life and a masterwork. A synthesis of musical theater and opera, there are arias and ballads, chorales and a jubilant jitter-bug, solos that are soliloquys, even a lullaby made satiric by its verse.
It?s a glorious synthesis by composer Kurt Weill and the artistic team and their company of singers and musicians deliver a production that will stand as a high point of the Cincinnati stage season.
The opera, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Elmer Rice, is a day in the lives of the occupants of a brick walk-up on New York?s East Side. The driving, slightly dissonant, slightly jazzy opening music says this can?t be anywhere but New York.
Like the city, the characters are a melting pot of European immigrants and longer resident Americans. ?Street Scene? is both epic ? a cast of 50-plus includes kids everywhere, beat cops, teeming life ? and intimate. We meet a handful of families and this moment in time is life-changing for the Maurrants.
Brian Ruggaber?s scenic design, which includes sidewalk and street, tells us everything we need to know about the working class neighborhood.
We can see into the street-facing apartments, where most of the windows are open because it?s a brutally hot July. Student David LaRose?s lighting takes us through the long day, dusk to dawn to dusk.
Mostly the residents gather outside on the stoop and everyone knows everyone?s business. Goldstein does wonderdul work in establishing character and relationships.
First we meet three housewives, of course in house dresses and aprons ? the costumes, by student Abbi Squires wonderfully define the people and their world.
Meryl Gellman is jolly Mrs. F, Andrea Spencer is new mom Mrs. Olsen and Lindsey Grebledinger is blunt Mrs. Jones. They are a wonderful trio and Grebledinger is especially charismatic in her disapproval as they sing about Anna Maurrant.
Tragedy awaits poor Anna (Summer Hassan) who is filled with dreams but husband Frank (admirably performed by Charles Z. Owen) is bullying, emotionally cold, a drinker. (Both are among several roles that are double cast).
Bitterly resentful of immigrants (and other changes), Owen powerfully sings Maurrant?s ?Let Things Be What They Always Was.?
Anna longs for warmth and is having an affair with the milkman and the whole building knows it. Hassan sings beautifully, her voice filled with wistfulness and longing in ?I Never Could Believe,? but she isn?t as strong an actress.
Meghan Tarkington gives a lovely rendition of their daughter Rose, finding and feeling every conflicting emotion in?a role that suggests a flower growing in an unlikely place.
She is adored by the nice Jewish boy downstairs, played effectively by Marco Cammarota, although he?s too mature for the role. It shifts their relationship just enough that the note of the desperate poignancy of youth (his and hers) is missing and much missed.
?Street Scene? seamlessly connects musical styles: in a nod to grand opera, Daniel Ross delightfully leads the neighbors in a Puccini-inspired ode to ice cream; Catherine Helm and Josh S. Smith come over from musical theater to perform a terrific dance sequence choreographed by student Joey Dippel that earned prolonged applause from the opening night audience.
Stand-out supporting roles include Dominique Waters as janitor Henry Davis; Spencer Viator as a frantic expectant father; Nick Ward as Mrs. Jones? loser husband; and drama student Megan Marshall as Sam?s concerned sister.
?Street Scene,? 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Patricia Corbett Theater, College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. Tickets $30, $19 students. 513-556-4183.
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Posted in: Updates
Source: http://cincinnati.com/blogs/arts/2012/11/16/review-street-scene-at-ccm-opera/
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