We generally consider operatic performance to be one of singers with uncommonly rare voices offering vocal beauty and power, supported by a great orchestra, in productions featuring impressive and elaborate sets and delightful theatrical magic. But, what happens when an opera company decides to take another approach? What happens when one takes those same uncommonly rare singers and that same great orchestra and moves outside into the elements—hoping the audience will follow—all the while eschewing the benefits and comforts of an equipped theatre? Knoxville Opera did just that this weekend for two sold-out performances on a grand scale with its production of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana outside on the front steps of Knoxville’s Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For Saturday’s performance, the obvious question ‘what happens if it rains?’ became reality.
Of course, Cavalleria is a 75-minute one-act opera and is usually performed paired with another one-act—often, the fellow verismo churner, Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. However, Knoxville Opera’s executive director Brian Salesky decided on another approach: precede Cavalleria with an operatically-tinged sacred music concert featuring the Knoxville Opera Chorus and soloists inside the architecturally stunning new cathedral.
Much like any of the grand, traditionally shaped cathedral naves of the world, this one assumes the role of performer as well as setting, its acoustics allowing voices and instruments to float ethereally due to the interior’s natural reverberation. In the concert’s opening number, mezzo-soprano Catherine Daniel, who would later appear as Santuzza in Cavalleria, was joined by violinist William Shaub, for the poignant “La Vergine degli Angeli” from Act II of Verdi’s La Forza del Destino. This piece, arranged to feature violin as well as soprano with chorus, was soothing and magical. Ms. Daniel also sang a beautiful “Ave Maria” from Verdi’s Otello.
While Mascagni is best known for the opera that was awaiting performance just outside, Salesky and company offered a prelude of sorts with segments from the composer’s Messa di Gloria. Mr. Shaub was featured in the “Elevazione”, a performance in which the piece’s natural romanticism was transformed into something quite sublime. Baritone Scott Bearden brought richness to the “Benedictus”; he was then joined by tenor Wayd Odle and the full chorus for an excellent and impressive “Gloria” as finale.
During the sacred music section inside the cathedral, the ever-dreaded rain began to fall outside, necessitating an extended intermission before the opera could begin. Miraculously, only a half-hour additional delay was needed before the rain had slacked off to an acceptable degree. With the audience taking seats around the church’s fountain and steps on three sides under tents, and with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra and conductor Salesky under its own tent, Cavalleria Rusticana began.
The opera takes place in a small Italian village on Easter Day, appropriately on the square outside the village’s church. Key to the story is the Easter service in the church, with the opera’s characters, and the narrative of love and jealousy, introduced before the service, and the conclusion of violence and revenge taking place afterwards. The famous orchestral “Intermezzo” indicates the Easter service in progress. Brilliantly, Mascagni relied on the listener’s imagination to fill in the blanks.
However, grand ideas do not always turn out grandly. While one has to admire the staging of Dean Anthony, as well as the logistics and stage management in getting such a production off the ground, the very things that made this production a unique operatic adventure, were also the very things that prevented its true success. Street noise and the physical space required that the singers and orchestra had to be miked, necessitating a sound system and an attempt at an engineered audio balance—always a severe compromise to both. Sound from speakers arrived from deceptively wrong directions; sight lines for all but the front rows of audience seating were poor. This writer found himself a few rows in front of the orchestra with his view of the singers and the action totally obscured, hardly the way one wants to experience an opera.
Despite the physical negatives of artificial sound and a cast singing in rain that had returned, one could sense that these were excellent singers doing justice to verismo dramatics and Mascagni’s engaging score: tenor Richard Troxell as Turiddu, mezzo-soprano Catherine Daniel as Santuzza, Elizabeth Peterson as Lucia, baritone Scott Bearden as Alfio, and Allison Deady as Lola.
True highlights of the day were the KSO and their own miraculous balancing act, and the Knoxville Opera Chorus. Under chorus master Don Townsend, the KO Chorus not only projected a nicely balanced choral sound, but contributed a wonderful energy and theatricality to the background crowd scenes. The opera’s famous Easter Hymn, “Inneggiamo, il Signor non è morto,” was beautifully and joyously rendered.
Of course, the joy of an adventure often lies in the journey rather than in the destination. I’m guessing everyone—audience, singers, chorus, and crew—will have stories to tell of the Knoxville Opera Cavalleria Rusticana journey for some time to come.
This review reflects the Saturday, May 4, 2019 performance. The Sunday, May 5 performance saw ideal weather.
