Word: rossini
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...entire New York City Center (opera, ballet, theater), tried to make it work. Through a $200,000 Rockefeller grant, he helped commission such modern operas as Aaron Copland's The Tender Land and the daring stage designs for Von Einem's The Trial, revived such confections as Rossini's Cenerentola. The Center was losing some $100,000 a year, but Kirstein often helped with money fromhis own pocket...
Presenting The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro on successive evenings not only gives the New England Opera Theater a repertoire of two standard works, it enables audiences to follow Beaumarchais' drama from the Count's frivolous courtship of Rosina through their tragi-comic marriage. Rossini's music for the first play perfectly reflects its brittle stylized comedy. And the score of Mozart's "sequel" (actually written thirty years earlier) given to the older characters an almost bitter-sweet maturity...
...lend itself really well to the rapid-fire arias of Bartolo and Figaro, but in recitatives it becomes invaluable for following nuances of the plot. Apart from the language change, Mr. Goldovsky adheres to the composer's intentions. Rosina, for instance, is sung by a mezzo-soprano as Rossini first planned. And she sings his original Lesson Scene, not the customary aria interpolated for benefit for the claque. The orchestra is authentically chamber-size and the theater itself much more intimate than our standard operatic caverns...
...Goldovsky's approach and the intensive rehearsal it entails have produced the sense of ensemble in his singers that is important for Rossini and crucial for Mozart. The second act finales in particular present unified vocal groups and not-as at the Metropolitan-a few soloists who happen to be singing simultaneously...
Since the Rossini work has been on tour since last year, it runs with amazing case and pace. The Marriage production, still new, has not yet acquired the same polish, but both provide evenings of operatic charm all too rare in Boston...