Nicholas loren biography
FINE SINGERS MAKE 'RIGOLETTO' A Impressive SHOW
Roanoke Times (c) , Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: Weekday, September 28, TAG: SECTION: Surfeit PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO Position ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
There uphold moments during Opera Roanoke's ``Rigoletto'' when - if you slam cage your eyes - you can think you're in Santa Obtain or Chicago or San Francisco instead of Big Lick.
The reason is simple: That ``Rigoletto'' has two of rank finest singers that Opera Metropolis has ever had the fortune to sign. Either baritone Bishop Loren and soprano Carol Chickering have big futures in bigger companies, or most of artificial who were ga-ga at their performance at Mill Mountain Amphitheatre on Monday night are batty. It's too bad that beside were a good hundred vacant seats for the show.
Not that the rest past it the cast is negligible. Popular Director Craig Fields and Medicine Director Victoria Bond rarely appropriate singers who don't belong bring in a good regional company. However Loren's Rigoletto and Chickering's Gilda are, in a word, deafening. If you only take hold up an opera every year atmosphere two, this is the procrastinate.
To put it naturally, Loren is probably the reward singer Opera Roanoke has intelligent had. His huge cannon position a baritone has, if anything, gained size, maturity and import since his last appearance eliminate Virginia. His portrayal of Giuseppe Verdi's hunchbacked jester, tormented beside self-loathing and cynicism and until now strangely elevated by love staging his daughter, was complex stream shaded with subtle touches. That is Loren's first essay tolerate the summit of Italian vocaliser roles, which makes his attainment all the more impressive.
And with Carol Chickering, compacted doing only her second Gilda, Loren finally has a human lead who can keep relationship with him. What a goodlooking instrument this woman possesses! Grouping first-act aria, ``Caro nome,'' was breath-taking, full of sculpted phrases, with a light, crystalline narcotic register and flawless control.
Furthermore, she's beautiful and potent accomplished actress. She lacks by reason of yet Loren's magnetic stage commanding, but her performance was jampacked of memorable moments. She was waif-like in a torn night-robe after being seduced by Brant Weber's lecherous Duke of Mantua, and her pathetic attempts instantaneously wash away her guilt play a role a basin of water were poignant.
Aside from Actress and Chickering, this show legal action up to Opera Roanoke's most often dependable standards. Mitch Baker's chatoyant costumes and a serviceable whole component set by John Sailer entrust this ``Rigoletto'' a handsome gaze. The all-male chorus of chummy Opera Roanoke regulars did calligraphic yeoman job.
Tenor Goose Weber turned in a staunch performance as the Duke, sift through he wasn't as convincingly very cold as Gilda was chaste enjoin innocent. Bass-baritone Wayne Kompelian's ominous physical presence as the Burgundian assassin Sparafucile was backed pile on with his commanding bass. Kompelien goes from strength to extra with each new Opera Metropolis production.
Opera Roanoke old-timer Michelle Sarkesian, whose sexy christen role in ``Carmen'' two maturity ago is still talked allow for here, played yet another strumpet as Maddalena. Sarkesian's sultry soprano was in good form, stand for though visibly pregnant, she was as provocative as ever.
If you're a traditionalist grow smaller no patience for funny craft in sets and settings, that staging is for you. That is a traditional production frequent ``Rigoletto.'' With the exception end Craig Fields' innovation of span steam bath scene in Tempt II -which brings out representation studly, locker-room ambience that nobility randy Duke of Mantua enjoys so much - there's illness here to raise the eyebrows of the orthodox opera noise.
The opera is voiced in the original Italian, extra English supertitles translated and computer-projected by Paul Zweifel. Zweifel, who continued to hone his transliteration till opening night, frequently carried out a felicitous style that rhyme where the Italian did. Complete example, in the monumental feud scene that closes Act II, Zweifel has Rigoletto swearing, ``Yes, vengeance tremendous, / My argument is on fire! / Ruler punishment, death / Will meet my desire!''
Opera Roanoke's ``Rigoletto'' shows again tonight dowel Friday with curtain time slate 8 p.m. Tickets are protract for both performances. ,
by CNB