Sunday, February 13, 2000
CCM does impressive Kurt Weill double bill
BY JANELLE GELFAND
The Cincinnati Enquirer
“I will belong to the one who proves he can understand me,” sings Dejanira, the woman in Kurt Weill's one-act opera Royal Palace.
Because no suitor can offer her a future, Dejanira chooses death in this provocative 1926 opera mounted Friday night in Patricia Corbett Theater by the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
The Kurt Weill double bill, Royal Palace and The Czar Has His Photograph Taken, directed by Jonathan Eaton, offered an intriguing glimpse into Weill's early career in Germany.
Mr. Eaton made the most of their political and social commentary. But where Royal Palace was laden with Third Reich symbolism, The Czar — a witty little opera about a group of terrorists who connive to assassinate the Czar in a Parisian photography studio — was more period farce.
Well cast, aptly staged, and visually arresting, it is Weill's music — the decadent cabaret, the seductive foxtrot — that lingers.
Royal Palace was sung in German to a libretto by Iwan Goll. As Dejanira, soprano Miranda Rowe projected an appealing voice that had both heft and expression. The Husband (Adam Schulz); The Past Lover (Michael Mayes) and Future Lover (Isaac Hurtado) performed their roles admirably. As they competed for Dejanira, dancers Dana Louise Dederostek, Kelly Yoder and Shellie Cash represented phases of Dejanira's life in imaginative dance sequences.
The Young and Old Fishermen and Soprano soloist were sung by Mark Panuccio, Jason Lester and Tanya Vanessa Kruse, respectively.
Occasionally all the symbols created a jumble onstage (as with the ensemble of nurses). But Royal Palace is eerily prophetic. The ingenious set by Paul Shortt aids Mr. Eaton's concept, with a wall that becomes a screen for projections, and reveals doors, a window (where Orpheus removes his helmet to reveal Hitler) and a crematorium.
In The Czar (sung in English), The False Angele (Anissa Hartline) and The Czar (Sean Anderson) dance a lethal tango in front of a “loaded” camera (set by Geoffrey Ahlers).
The excellent cast included Katherine Jolly (Angele), Ross Hauck (The Assistant) and Blythe Gaissert (The Boy); a small ensemble commented like Greek chorus.
The orchestra, under Mark Gibson, captured the period with spirit.
The operas repeat at 2:30 p.m. today. 556-4183.
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