The Central City Opera is an old hand at entertaining the Colorado masses. The organization has been putting on shows old and new, traditional and adventurous, since 1932.
Still, the company has never attempted anything quite as ambitious as the production of “Show Boat” it has going at Denver’s 2,800-seat Buell Theatre this week, far from the historic, 550-seat opera house in the hills it calls home. Central City is stepping out, and stepping it up, in terms of sets and cast.
But the production itself isn’t treading any new ground. Instead, it’s a “Show Boat” that gives people exactly what they expect in a big, Broadway-style musical, clever stagecraft and booming voices — in this case a batch of voices trained classically.
It’s those voices that brought people to their feet on Tuesday’s opening night. Front and center: Soloman Howard, the bass who plays Joe and gets the evening’s big number, “Ol’ Man River.”
Howard has a superhuman ability to reach low, and then lower still, while maintaining a rich and bright tone to his voice. As his notes dropped on stage, jaws dropped in the audience.
It carried the night, just as Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein programmed it to in 1927 when they wrote music and lyrics. Joe’s signature song works as a time piece, reappearing as the story just keeps rolling along.
That story, originally by Edna Ferber, is familiar now to generations of theatergoers. It follows life on a Mississippi show boat over the course of a half century starting in 1880. Cap’n Andy is the skipper of both the deck hands and the performers. Over time, his daughter, Magnolia, grows up, marries a gambler and faces her own tragedies before finding her lasting peace.
“Show Boat” has plenty of upbeat numbers, but it’s not a happy musical. The story deals with the racism the black crew faces pulling into ports in the South. It uses the N-word, which is perhaps more shocking to hear on stage in 2013 than when the show premiered.
Somehow, it still manages to find an uplifting spirit and that was maintained by the talented principals in the cast, including Gene Scheer as the captain, Julia Burrows as his smiling songbird daughter, Troy Cook, who sang as her troubled mate, and Angela Renee Simpson as Joe’s wife, Queenie.
They were amped for the large theater, but the charm of their vocal talents was able to come through, mostly, supported by the orchestra, positioned toward the back of the stage rather than in the pit. The bright period costumes, which start out looking like something from the Civil War and end up very 1920s, offered more backup.
That was important. The tale covers a sweeping period, and this production didn’t always sail along smoothly. There were abrupt changes in both time and tone. The ending felt forced with the cast showing up rather suddenly, shuffling around like senior citizens and forgiving atrocities in a rush to the final number.
The sudden shifts caused much of the show’s humanity to get lost, and there seemed to be little point to all the racist stuff, other than to simply show it. The musical is written that way, but it’s up to individual productions to work out the subtle parts.
Still, this “Show Boat” delivered what people want. The choral numbers rang out, and folks walked out into the lobby singing the familiar tunes, which include, notably, “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man.”
Central City knows a song makes a show work, and this show worked its songs.
Ray Mark Rinaldi: 303-954-1540, rrinaldi@denverpost.com or twitter.com/rayrinaldi
“SHOW BOAT.” Central City Opera presents the classic American musical, written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, in Denver at the Buell Theatre, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, 14th and Curtis streets. Through Sunday. $22-$121. 303-292-6700 or centralcityopera.org.
