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ENTERTAINMENT

Review | Opera's Mozart a strong performance

Elizabeth Kramer
@arts_bureau

Firstly, it’s Mozart – a big draw to Kentucky Opera’s current production of “The Abduction from the Seraglio” that opened Friday at the Brown Theatre. It’s not “The Magic Flute,” “Così fan tutte or “The Marriage of Figaro.”

Ashly Neumann as Blonde and Ryan Connelly as Pedrillo in Kentucky Opera's production of Mozart's "The Abduction from the Seraglio."

It was the rarely performed "The Abduction from the Seraglio,” which premiered in 1782 when Turkish style was the rage in Vienna. This opera Singspiel in three acts, which means it includes some spoken dialogue, also marked the composer’s arrival, creativity and style – with those complicated runs sung often by his sopranos.

In the Kentucky Opera’s production, Devon Guthrie as Constanze mesmerized with her precision and sweet tone as she soared into the higher range of a run and dipped down only to ascend again. Furthermore, Guthrie’s singing balanced with the Louisville Orchestra conducted by Joseph Mechavich.

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But the production’s charm also sprang from its fanciful and fairly Victorian-inspired set and costumes reminiscent of one that could be used for a performance for one of Lewis Carroll’s stories about Alice.

Scenic and costume designer Jacob Climer has created a world outside of reality for Kentucky Opera’s joint production with the Des Moines Metro Opera, which performed it last year. The stage floor, lined with lustrous artificial grass, gives way to a large gilded frame upstage that edges a large space for indoor and outdoor scenes.

The costumes give Constanze cotton-candy-pink hair and add tinges of purple to the locks of her fiancé, Belmonte. (Their embraces on stage induced flashes of the Barbie Dream House color scheme.) It all adds up to a rather cartoonish kind of domain.

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That works well with this story, which hits on some sensitive subjects given the politics in today’s world. The company’s use of the original German lyrics with supertitles and English for dialogue also made all the action easy to follow.

When Constanze sings her first big solo, it is to convince her captor, Pasha Selim (Whit Whitaker), that she cannot consummate any sexual relationship with him because her heart belongs to Belmonte (Joshua Dennis), her Spanish fiancé.

That part of the story unfolds before Constanze even comes on stage. The background: Constanze and her English maid Blonde (Ashly Neumann) have been captured from a ship by pirates and sold to Pasha Selim to live and serve in his harem at his seaside palace. Kidnapped with them is a Spanish servant and Blonde’s beau, Pedrillo (Ryan Connelly), who now works for the palace henchman Osmin (Gustav Andreassen). Osmin fantasizes about torturing Christians and struggles with how to make Blonde yield to and love him.

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Blonde's spunk and the loveable and sometimes-daft Pedrillo made the two highlights of the show – not only in their comedic performances but their voices, which almost always came through clear and strong. (Both artists are members of the company’s studio artist program, meaning that the public will get more opportunities to see them perform throughout the season.)

Andreassen, a bass singing as Osmin, has a demanding vocal role – requiring him to hit a low D, the lowest note in an opera – and meets the challenges for the most part. At others, his voice is not clear or strong enough to surmount the sounds of the orchestra.

Dennis’ somewhat aloof Belmonte served a solid role but lacked depth of character. His singing held skill in climbing some of Mozart’s runs for his character.

Director David Gately handily juggled the funky set and the players in this fanciful world. But there were a few stretches – particularly in the first 15 minutes – when the energy of the performance didn’t match the spunk of the surroundings.

Even with an underlying storyline of Christians pitted against Muslims, this opera resonates today and this production deftly handled it. It set the story with lighthearted visuals that levitated it to a narrative not bound by time that led it to focus on human nature, where the idea of “the other” is often titillating and frightening. But, in the end, the story shows that human nature can also transcend our own man-made boundaries between us through values of generosity, mercy and forgiveness.

Kentucky Opera’s production of Mozart’s “The Abduction from the Seraglio” continues with a performance at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 6, at the Brown Theatre, 315 W. Broadway. More information: 800-775-7777; www.kyopera.org; www.kentuckycenter.org.

Reach reporter Elizabeth Kramer at (502) 582-4682 and ekramer@courier-journal.com. Follow her on Twitter @arts_bureau and on Facebook at Elizabeth Kramer - Arts Writer.