Tulsa Opera is celebrating its 75th anniversary this season, and the company chose to begin the festivities with an opera the company has never presented before — Gioachino Rossini’s “L’Italiana de Algeri,” or “The Italian Girl in Algiers.”
This production also is the first time Tulsa Opera has presented one of its major productions in the VanTrease PACE, the performing arts complex on Tulsa Community College’s Southeast campus.
The change of venue is strictly a matter of logistics — a certain Disney musical had already “Frozen” the dates at the opera’s usual home, the Tulsa PAC — but it is a change that works in the company’s favor. (We attended the dress rehearsal performance Wednesday.)
“The Italian Girl,” as Tulsa Opera prefers to label the piece, is one of Rossini’s frothier confections, a comic opera of supreme silliness that benefits greatly from the relative intimacy and sharp acoustics of the VanTrease’s main theater.
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The story is typically outlandish: Mustafa, the Bey, or ruler, of Algeria (Ashraf Sewailam), has grown bored with the affections of his wife Elvira (Abigail Raiford) and decides the only thing that can properly spice up his love life is to add an Italian girl — any Italian girl — to his harem.
He will send the wife away with his Italian servant Lindoro (Aaron Crouch), who can fulfill any husbandly duties, and dispatches his chief corsair Ali (V. Savoy McIlwain) to find an Italian girl in six days. Or else.
As luck would have it, a ship bearing an Italian girl named Isabella (Allegra De Vita) happens to run aground on Algerian shores. Ali takes her and her traveling companion Taddeo (Robert Mellon) into custody, telling her that she is bound for the boudoir of the Bey.
Isabella, however, is nonplussed at this turn of events, especially when she discovers that the man she went to sea to find, her fiance Lindoro, is also caught up in Mustafa’s marital melee. “In Italy,” Isabella notes, “it’s the women who train the men,” and she sets out not only to humiliate Mustafa but also to free all the Italians trapped in Algeria.
Director Kimille Howard stages the action with a fine eye for comic flair, allowing the buffoonery to build up slowly to the cartoonish finale. She also kept the action on stage in almost constant motion — a bit like Rossini’s music — with the chorus and extras reacting to the silliness on stage; one of the supernumaries, MaKayla Baxter, was particular effective in her comic antics.
De Vita, who impressed Tulsa audiences with her performance as Maddalena in “Rigoletto” in 2020, is marvelous in a very different role as the canny Isabella, whether she is recoiling from the attentions of Mustafa, determining how she will overcome any adversity in “Già so per pratica,” or encouraging her fellow countrymen in “Pensa alla patria.”
Raiford, a Tulsa native and current member of the opera’s Filstrup Resident Artist Program, displays a powerful, luxurious soprano voice, as well as a wonderfully comic way of weeping, as the woebegone Elvira.
As Lindoro, Crouch embodied the character’s boyish innocence well, and his singing has a bell-like clarity, but he did not seem to have as much power as his colleagues (it is possible, as this was a dress rehearsal, that Crouch chose not to sing at full voice). On the other hand, bass-baritones Sewailam and Mellon take their clowning right to the edge of going over the top, while delivering Rossini’s rapid-free pattering with aplomb.
Leslie Dunner led the Tulsa Opera Orchestra in a performance that was full of color and sparkle, and that spurred the onstage actions with its energy. Lyndon Meyer, who prepared the all-male chorus, also was the orchestra’s harpsichordist.
The sets and costumes were created originally for Sarasota Opera Association by Michael Schweikardt and Howard Tsvi Kaplan, respectively. Deanna Byford designed the lighting, and Amanda Clark created the hair and makeup designs.
“The Italian Girl” will be presented 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 28, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 30, at the VanTrease PACE, 10300 E. 81st St., on the Tulsa Community College Southeast campus. For tickets: 918-595-7777, tulsaopera.com. To receive a 30 percent discount on tickets, use code IGFamPrice.
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