Well, that was gorgeous

[ann_leckie]

Well, I Puritani was totally cool. Even given the fact that both tenors (the version OTSL did has two tenors instead of tenor and baritone) were both under the weather. Arturo, the romantic lead, was unable even to speak, so his understudy sang from the sidelines. Tenor number 2 (Ricardo) did an excellent job even not feeling well. And a bass (Giorgio) had a temp of 102 and would clearly have been better off resting his voice, but bravely agreed to infect the rest of the cast and did his level best to sing anyway. It was allergies that made life so hard for the tenors, we were told.

The music was fan-freaking-tastic. The soprano (Elvira--Pamela Armstrong) was a-freaking-mazing. The chorus is always marvelous, and I'm a sucker for an opera with lots of chorus. The understudy, whose name I don't know--hang on..Eric Margiore--did an excellent job, though the sort of lip-synching effect was odd. Anyway, he got lots of shouts and applause, which he deserved.

I couldn't take the plot seriously, but did not go in expecting to, given the synopses I'd read. The mad scene isn't particularly convincing as actual madness, and the Letter Ex Machina ending is kind of silly. But that's all right. It was lovely.

Comments

even if they were sick

[theloomofmoira.livejournal.com]

I still think it's wonderful that you got to go. love opera :)

[ecbatan.livejournal.com]

I wonder why they didn't have the understudy take over the whole role if the lead was so sick?

(Another mystery of opera I haven't grokked yet, I suppose!)

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

They said that there wasn't time to deal with "costume issues" and with staging--I figured that meant the lead's clothes wouldn't fit the understudy without some work, and the understudy had been practicing the music but not the actual blocking and such, and or at least not enough that they felt he could do it on short notice. This was the theory I came up with, anyway.