Chicago Classical Review

Francesco Cilea was no Puccini when it came to creating operatic protagonists one could actually care about, or music that would actually send their emotional outpourings heavenward.

Adriana Lecouvreur (1902) has just enough tuneful arias to keep Cilea’s most popular opera on the boards in major opera houses, provided they have the resources to bring it off. The rest is mawkish melodrama, cheap theatrical effects, preposterous plotting and busy-busy musical padding, spread across 2½ long hours.

The one and only time Lyric Opera of Chicago ventured Cilea’s greatest hit was way back in 1957, when no less than Renata Tebaldi, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Giulietta Simionato and Tito Gobbi ennobled its hoary romantic cliches.

Without a prima donna of Tebaldi’s vocal charisma to impersonate the glamorous tragic heroine, there’s really not much point in resurrecting Cilea’s musically thin, dramatically clumsy potboiler.

The Opera Festival of Chicago has never let such petty considerations get in the way of its resuscitations of neglected Italian operas. 

The company’s rescue mission on behalf of Adriana Lecouvreur is playing in repertory with Puccini’s La Bohème at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, where it opened on Sunday.

With stronger singing than one might have expected, idiomatic conducting, capable orchestral playing, conscientious staging and a decent minimalist production, this Adriana is good enough to make one overlook—well, almost overlook—the work’s gaping flaws.

Interpreters of the doomed heroine have included, in recent decades, Renata Scotto, Mirella Freni, Angela Gheorghiu and Anna Netrebko.

On Sunday, Opera Festival’s Adriana, Zhanna Alkhasova, carried herself with an aplomb in keeping with the Comédie-Française actress whose romantic rivalry with the Princess de Bouillon culminates in her pretty if improbable death by poisoned violets.

The Moscow-born, Connecticut-based diva brought a gleaming, voluminous dramatic soprano to Adriana’s sentimental agonies, comfortably riding the lush orchestral waves, even if certain climaxes flirted with squalliness. Her singing was free of the strident edge of many Slavic sopranos—give her that.

Too bad her imperious, self-aware portrayal was at odds with the character’s vulnerability. The famed Act 1 aria “Io son l’umile ancella” was sung more as a flat-out showpiece than as a touching assertion of humility in the service of Art. Then, too, the arching, long-lined pathos of Adriana’s death scene, complete with a somewhat unfocused “Poveri fiori,” was more palpable in conductor Emanuele Andrizzi’s glowing accompaniment than in her vocalism.  

Together Alkhazova and Viktoria Vizin, as Adriana’s venomous rival, the Princess de Bouillon, were able to kick up plenty of old-fashioned operatic thrills in their Act 3 duet. The mezzo-soprano looked glamorous in her fancy gowns and sang beautifully—comfortable at the extremes of her wide range—pouring out the spurned princess’s spiteful jealousy in an elegant lava-flow of sound.

Jeremy Brauner rose manfully to the tenorial exertions of Adriana’s dashing lover Maurizio. His plangent tenor brought out the Prince of Saxony’s ardor securely even if his rather stiff demeanor and the lack of honeyed warmth in his timbre undercut the effectiveness of his performance.

Franco Pomponi, Opera Festival’s artistic director, gave himself another plum assignment in Michonnet, the stage manager and Adriana’s admirer. The supporting role fit the baritone like the proverbial glove. His rock-solid singing, wedded to a sympathetic characterization, made a refreshing change from the aging baritones usually cast in the part.  

Also fully in the dramatic picture were tenor David Cangelosi as the amorous Abbé de Chazeuil and baritone Christopher Filipowicz as his companion, the Prince de Bouiollon. Cangelosi in particular was an absolute delight, singing securely and disappearing into the snoopy character with his customary stage skills. The other supporting singers, chorus and members of the Evanston Dance Ensemble (performing the pretty if dramatically irrelevant ballet divertissement depicting the Judgment of Paris) acquitted themselves nicely.

Nobody apparently told conductor Andrizzi that Adriana is less than a masterpiece. He obviously believes in the musical merits of the piece wholeheartedly and he succeeded in transferring that love to his engaged instrumentalists. The company’s music director was a commanding presence in the pit, drawing red-blooded playing from an orchestra heavily stocked with Lyric Opera musicians. He drove the hokey melodrama forward with authority, his phrasing full of elastic warmth.

If the set designed by Shane Cinal sometimes suggested more a provincial theater than the venerable Comédie-Française, Bill Morey’s costumes at least upheld  period atmosphere without looking bargain-basement.

Shifra Werch moved human traffic around the proscenium-less stage resourcefully, for the most part. The stage director did her best with what she was given. Too bad her worthy staging fell apart in the dramatic muddle that is the final act; in fairness, the composer and librettist were the main culprits.

Romantic opera fans susceptible to the faded charms of Adriana Lecouvreur will want to check out this show, warts and all. For certain they won’t get another chance locally anytime soon.

Opera Festival of Chicago’s Adriana Lecouvreur will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Friday at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, Skokie. Remaining performances of La Bohème are 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and 2 p.m. July 5. operafestivalchicago.org

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