The Opera Company of Brooklyn hopes to be to the opera world
what the minor league Brooklyn Cyclones are to the Mets. It’s
a chance for music enthusiasts to watch – and listen to – talented,
young opera singers, some of whom might one day make it to prestigious
companies.
Then the Opera Company of Brooklyn (OCB) audience will have the
pleasure of saying, "I knew them when "
At Bargemusic Tuesday, OCB presents "A Salute to Richard
Tucker," a benefit for its just-formed Resident Artist Program.
The benefit falls on the 88th anniversary of the great tenor’s
birth.
The late tenor, who sang at the Metropolitan Opera for three
decades, was born in Williamsburg, and his son Barry Tucker is
the honorary chairman of this special event.
In keeping with OCB founder and artistic director Jay Meetze’s
stated aim for the company – to both nurture rising talent and
enrich Brooklyn with more affordable opportunities to support
the arts – the concert features several talented young singers,
who have already gotten their start with other notable opera
companies. They will perform selections from many of the operas
in which Tucker himself performed during his long and storied
career.
A handful of the performers on the benefit program have sung
locally: soprano Jacqueline Venable, mezzo Barbara LeMay and
tenor Enrique Abdada have all performed on the New York City
Opera stage. (Abdada is also the director of OCB’s Resident Artist
program.) As for the other featured performers, soprano Joanna
Mongiardo has sung at the Caramoor Festival in Westchester County,
soprano Michelle Mattalina has performed at Santa Fe Opera and
baritone Galen Scott Bower has sung with the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Accompanied by pianists Kathy Olsen and Leo Shih, the singers
will perform arias from a veritable "Greatest Operas"
list: Mozart’s "The Magic Flute" and "Cosi fan
Tutte," Verdi’s "La Traviata" and "Rigoletto,"
Johann Strauss’ "Die Fledermaus," Donizetti’s "Lucia
di Lamermoor" and Puccini’s "Madame Butterfly."
Such excerpts give the audience a chance to hear much-beloved
and familiar music as well as enable the performers to show off
their vocal chops, both solo and in an ensemble.
Coming off an auspicious debut season that opened with a double
bill that could be called ambitious by any standard – a youthful
Mozart’s "The Impresario" and the dramatic Gian Carlo
Menotti one-act, "The Medium" – OCB intends to take
that momentum (undoubtedly furthered by the Tucker benefit) into
its upcoming 2001-2002 season.
If scheduling Puccini’s ubiquitous tragedy "Madame Butterfly"
to open the season smacks of pandering to its audience, well,
why not? However overly familiar it is, "Butterfly"
also has the distinction of Puccini’s best music: glorious melodies
that burn themselves into your brain and stay there, and sympathetic
characters who slide reassuringly into their fateful trajectories.
And Puccini’s music usually brings out the assertiveness in many
singers; in this production (staged by Ira Siff and conducted
by Maestro Meetze), soprano Mattalina returns to sing the ill-fated
heroine Cio-Cio San, and baritone Bower also comes back as the
American officer Sharpless.
("Madame Butterfly" will be performed Dec. 15 at the
Klitgord Auditorium, NYC Technical College, 300 Jay St.)
If Menotti’s "The Medium" awoke unsuspecting opera-goers
to the strength of 20th-century American operas at OCB last season,
then his holiday perennial "Amahl and the Night Visitors"
will reaffirm their faith in the sheer soothing beauty of music.
Originally broadcast on television in the 1950s, Menotti’s "Three
Kings" retelling provides an evocative musical setting for
such an oft-heard story. The OCB production, directed by Ted
Altschuler and conducted by Meetze, features OCB Resident Artist
Jessica Miller.
("Amahl and the Night Visitors" will be performed Dec.
23 at Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims, 75 Hicks St.)
Next spring, the Opera Company of Brooklyn’s season concludes
with two more events: the first annual opera gala featuring all
16 of the company’s Resident Artists (May 18 at the Klitgord
Auditorium); and a staging of Donizetti’s comic gem "The
Elixir of Love" (June 8 at the Klitgord Auditorium).
Meetze himself has said that the company is located in Brooklyn
so residents can have the opportunity to attend a professional
operatic production without having to leave the borough. Hearing
young singers on their way up is an exciting proposition for
many opera lovers, and discovering a career in its ascension
is just one of many reasons to keep an eye – and ear! – on the
Opera Company of Brooklyn.
Opera Company of Brooklyn presents "A
Salute to Richard Tucker," on Aug. 28 at 7:30 pm on Bargemusic
at Fulton Ferry Landing. A post-concert wine and cheese reception
is included. Tickets are $50. For more information about the
Opera Company of Brooklyn, call (718) 986-3294 or visit www.operabrooklyn.com.
