South Florida Classical Review

Alexander Fanan and Abby Guido performed a duet from Deems Taylor’s Peter Ibbetson at Frost Opera Theater’s showcase of American opera Wednesday night. Photo: FOT

Frost Opera Theater’s fall highlights programs always feature interesting repertoire centered around a thematic premise. On Wednesday night at the University of Miami’s Clarke Recital Hall on the Coral Gables campus, “Eye on American Opera (1900-2024) offered a primer on the diversity and creative spirit of American music theater.

The student singers were consistently excellent. Jeffrey Buchman’s bare staging without sets created atmosphere and dramatic tension, making a virtue of the minimalist trappings. Excerpts from 17 operas were presented in a widely ranging parade of stylistic idioms and dramatic creations. Due to singer illness, two of the originally scheduled extracts from Black Water and The Mother of Us All were omitted.

In such a wide-ranging survey, inevitably, some highlights stood out. The oldest excerpt on the program emerged as one of the most enticing. Peter Ibbetson by Deems Taylor was a huge success at its 1931 Metropolitan Opera but quickly faded from view. Taylor, a music critic and broadcaster as well as a composer, was a consummate craftsman who infused his conservative idiom with unexpected harmonic surprises. “How strange that we have met here” pictures a reunion of former friends and lovers in voluptuous romantic strains that would not have been out of place in Puccini or Strauss but with a decisively American voice. The impressive vocalism of tenor Alexander Fanon and soprano Abby Guido captured the music’s repressed passion.

Two excerpts from stage works by Philip Glass presented the iconic composer’s minimalism in differing contexts. A spare duet for the title character and Nefertiti from Akhnaten (1987) flowed wit in quasi-Renaissance fashion while a scene from Orphée (1993) suggested a romantic streak beneath the signature repetitive figures. David Lee’s voluminous baritone made Orphée’s attraction to the mysterious princess potently felt. In a flaming red gown, Congcong Wang matched his ardor and fear in this modernist version of the Orpheus legend, based on Jean Cocteau’s nightmarish movie.

The libretto of Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land (1954) has been criticized as too static and lacking in character development but the score is first-rate Copland Americana. The aria “Once I thought I’d never grow” sings with the flowing lines of Copland’s songs and Grace Mineo was fully attentive to Copland’s uniquely American style.

In a similar vein, one of the climactic sequences from The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956) by Douglas Moore finds the former silver king Horace Tabor hallucinating near death while his lover Baby Doe pays him a final visit. Once a popular and frequently produced work, the opera has fallen off the repertoire radar and needs a high profile revival. Sopreano Jie Lee captured the passion of “Always through the changing” and baritone Matthew Reber sang Tabor’s role with strength.

George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935) is an American classic. Two of the score’s  standards highlighted the throbbing sound of Zaryah Gourgel’s powerful version of Serena’s lament “My Man’s Gone Now” and Aisha Barnes’ light soprano in “Summertime.”

Stephen Sondheim’s music theater creations occupy a middle ground between the Broadway stage and the opera. While the composer continually denied that he was writing operas, many of his works have been staged by opera companies. A Little Night Music (1973) is one of his best pieces, combining inspired melodies with Sondheim’s typical cynicism. Grace Mineo and Hope Sears fully conveyed the sarcasm of “Every Day a Little Death.” A full vocal ensemble gave rousing voice to the Ravel-tinged “Night Waltz-The Sun Won’t Set.” Throughout the program, the individual solo singers seamlessly blended into a well- balanced choral group.

The hypnotic, reflective lines of Pat Nixon’s aria “I don’t daydream, and I don’t look back” from John Adams’ Nixon in China (1987) were given appropriate nervous urgency by soprano Sophia Vidali. An alluring, witty snippet from Postcard from Morocco (1971) by Dominick Argento was deftly rendered by Yoojin Lee. Argento was a major opera composer whose works have disappeared since his death and demand rediscovery. 

Mark Adamo, on the other hand, so far appears to be a one- trick pony. His Little Women (1998) has been widely produced but his subsequent operas have had little success. An aria from that hit “No games now/ Let me look at you” were affecting, delivered with conviction by Olivia Gray. The agitated excitement of “To Know” from As One (2014) by Laura Kaminsky suggest a fresh operatic voice. Lauren Richards and Holden Seward transmitted a sense of wonder from learning.

The program concluded with the stirring chorus “We want you to be our leader” from Treemonisha (1911) by Scotrt Joplin, a true American original. The full vocal contingent sang vociferously but with beauty of tonal production. 

Shuguang Gong and Rina Kharrasova were the sturdy, attentive keyboard accompanists and Alan Johnson conducted with total authority and sympathy across the many varied styles of American opera. The entire program was both a fascinating educational exploration and great entertainment.

Frost Opera Theater repeats “Eye on American Opera (1900-2024)” 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the UM Clarke Recital Hall in Coral Gables. music.um.edu

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