Word: isabellas
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Nothing lends itself to Rossini's tidal score more than a story of comic abduction, spousal warfare, anachronistic feminism and subtle slapstick. In this opera, one Bey of Algiers, Mustafa, seeks to rid himself of his dull wife. Elvira and replace her with the kidnapped Isabella, an Italian femme fatale. Enter Lindoro, a hapless Italian slave who just happens to be the lover of Isabella. With the cooperation of an unlucky suitor and the assistance of Elvira, Isabella and Lindoro escape to Italy together by means of an outragerous contrivance, leaving Mustafa and Elvira reunited...
Donna Ames is brilliant as Isabella, although she seems to warm only gradually to her character through the first act. But by the second act her acting and singing are consistently stellar. Ames's Isabella is indeed Rossini's willful and clever heroine; she is convincing in her character's guile...
Paul Lincoln, as Isabella's lonely and luckless suitor Taddeo, conveys the essence of hid conceited character perfectly. Although his voice was not spectacular (he was rumored to have been ill on Sunday), his excellent positioning, mime and gesturing complemented the humour show of Stevens and Ames. In the finale, Lincoln finishes the opera with a show of vocal stamina indicative of ali of the leads...
...show's chorus, made up of the only graduates in the cast, offers a fine complement to the show's great leads. The choreography of the opening and the pirate scene during Isabella's first aria are excellent. But too often members gesturing seemed vapid, aimless and irrelevant. This inability to sustain convincing activity behind the leads greatly hurts an otherwise good performance...
...works in the show deal with one of these two themes. Another notable piece is "Last Seen," Sophie Calle's photograph of the wall space where Manet's "Chez Tortoni" used to hang before disappearing from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in the largest art theft in recent history. Next to this photograph is a framed text of commentary on the work by employees at the Gardner...