Michael J. Lutch

The ambitious BYSO program, headed by Music Director Federico Cortese (also the conductor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra), has made one semi-staged opera featuring professional singers a feature of its season. I caught their Norma last year and it became quickly apparent that in an opera-starved city, the BYSO’s beefy repertoire, performed with an astonishing level of cohesion and competence by students largely concentrated around Massachusetts’s learners permit eligibility age of 16, fills a void neither the Boston Symphony Orchestra or Boston Lyric Opera is able to fill.

But beyond the quality of the performance, which I’ll get into in a minute, the BYSO opera performances are such winners for the feeling of sheer abundance they provide. Most opera in this country toils under an entrenched scarcity mindset that can’t help but color most presentations. (“Make your gift now — this Tosca could be our last!”) Not so with the BYSO; the auditorium is packed, the audience, which includes many friends and family of the over 150 musicians (they split the opera across two ensembles so no single student is responsible for learning the entire piece) is attentive, and the playing is vibrant and exciting. We all have our grim “opera is dying – nay, opera is dead!” days. The BYSO, with its dozens of talented musicians packed into the theatre, just seems to exist in another, happier realm.

But beyond the excitement of the event itself, it’s not to be understated how high quality the playing itself was. With large and incisive gestures, Cortese led an impressively clean performance of the four-Act Milan version that proved most persuasive in its contrasts. From the gaiety of Eboli’s Act I garden to the bombast of the auto-da-fé to the impenetrability of the Grand Inquisitor scene, Cortese showed the admirable ability to suggest the opera’s massive scope by highlighting its variety of tones.

It’s heady narrative work and the students responded to him readily, only occasionally miring themselves in the score’s churn. I was probably around the same age of these kids when I first encountered (and was first confused by) the word “tinta” to describe Verdi’s scores – whereas I still struggle to grasp its meaning, they seem to have the way Verdi suggests an environment down pat. Equally distinguished were the solo contributions – brass and cello played with particular warmth and shape.

The brilliance of the orchestra was somewhat enhanced by the largely monochromatic sextet of leads. Bruce Sledge as Don Carlo, a bright-voiced Heldentenor fish out of water, never showed fatigue but his inability to assimilate anything close to a Verdi style did not show him off at his best. The singing was always secure but lacked variety, buzzy high notes expressed out of the chest to the detriment of an inclination towards more generous phrasing. More deficient still in this department was the Filippo of Nathan Berg who acted with intense, sadistic gusto but now only has a handful of notes at the bottom of his voice that ring out reliably; no amount of color and dynamics could make up for the absence of legato that robbed “Ella giammai m’amò” of its emotional heft.

Michael J. Lutch

For that, one had rather look to the Elisabetta of Raquel González, whose heavyweight lyric soprano traversed her debut in the part with security and style, if not necessarily vocal glamour. “Tu che le vanità” was earnest and her sense of phrasing – including but not limited to the blasted B-flat at the end — shows promise. Markus Werba as Rodrigo offered the most satisfying blend of singing and text as Rodrigo, pointing the words with more flare than all his colleagues combined, but the singing itself was more one-note.

About the Eboli of Maire Therese Carmack, the less that is said, the better. From her warbled and garbled “Veil Song” to a tense, unpolished “O don fatale,” I was hard pressed to remember the last time I saw such a charmless performance. Matthew Anchel was in plusher voice as the Grand Inquisitor, but of gloom, gravitas, or haughty diction there was none and his scene came and went with surprisingly little impact. Liv Redpath, a Harvard alum, was positively luscious as the Celestial Voice.

The BYSO Opera Chorus, consisting of what appeared to be full-fledged adults and prepared by Charles Prestinari, sounded rough ‘n ready, the men’s chorus especially firm. The direction, by Joshua Major, was clear and fluid across the small playing space and Brooke Stanton’s deluxe costumes deserve a nod. But it was the Orchestra’s afternoon and an auspicious start to a week of operas in concert for Boston where Die tote Stadt will open at the Symphony on Thursday.

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