Chicago Classical Review

The Abduction from the Seraglio has led a prodigal life on local stages.

Lyric Opera last ventured Mozart’s endearing singspiel in 2009. Roughly one year earlier, James Conlon conducted a fondly-remembered concert version at the outset of his multi-season survey at Ravinia of the canonic Mozart operas, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The festival’s former music director brought his Ravinia traversal full circle Saturday afternoon in the Martin Theatre, where he presided over a CSO performance of Die Entführung aus dem Serail that gloried in stronger singing than his previous outing—and, indeed, proved more successful overall. (Thursday night’s performance was cancelled at the last minute out of concerns over the hazardous air quality resulting from Canadian wildfires.)

Once again the opera was given in modified concert form, with an effective semi-staging directed by Harry Silverstein and an outstanding cast headed by some of the leading lights among the younger generation of Mozart singers.

Who needs sets, costumes and full staging when you have so luxurious a pit band as the CSO at the ready, sharing the stage with singers and conductor?

Conlon and friends delivered the score substantially complete, with discreet traditional cuts. The opera was sung in the original German, with English surtitles. Whatever dramatic points were missing from the non-action and the original German dialogues were covered in a fine if uncredited English-language narration. It was delivered with elegant aplomb by Jefferson Mays, doubling as narrator and in the spoken role of Pasha Selim.

The accomplished stage and screen actor played the Ottoman pasha who holds the Spanish nobleman Belmonte’s beloved Konstanze and her maid Blonde captive in his harem. Pedrillo, Blonde’s swain and Belmonte’s manservant, has been enlisted as the Turkish lord’s head gardener. The captives eventually are set free after Selim magnanimously consents to their release.

Saturday’s terrific performance proved a fitting summation of Conlon’s distinguished, decades-long advocacy of the operatic Mozart. Last season Conlon concluded a notable 20-year tenure as music director of Los Angeles Opera.

On Saturday this born Mozartean made certain that musical flow and dramatic pacing were all of a piece. It was nice to see him mouthing the German text along with the singers, sharing close communication within touching distance of the podium.

Ever sensitive to articulation, phrasing and dynamics, Conlon paced the performance with such grace, style and spontaneity that the show—lasting well under three hours, including intermission—seemed to fly by.

You won’t hear Mozart’s evergreen scoreplayed any finer than what the chamber contingent of the CSO delivered for Conlon on Saturday. The instrumental work was fully on par with the singing, fully engaged in the ingenious workings of the music. Such is the physical and acoustical intimacy of the 850-seat house that neither the players nor the singers had to push.

Chicago opera fans know Kathryn Lewek for her definitive performances as Mozart’s Queen of the Night at Lyric; she has since graduated to the vocal rigors of Konstanze. On Saturday she met all the requirements of this formidable role in triumph.

The soprano began at full vocal throttle and her singing just got stronger as the performance went on—the tone beautiful and secure across a wide vocal compass, the coloratura flashing in bravura flight. Her “Traurigkeit ward mir zum Lose” was touched by affecting pathos, her showpiece “Martern aller Arten” a spectacular declaration of resolve and courage. Both arias brought down the house.

Together, Lewek and Miles Mykkanen, as the dauntless Belmonte, delivered the sort of world-class Mozart vocalism Chicago has not heard in a great while.

Indeed, the youthful Finnish-American artist sounded like the very model of a modern Mozart tenor. Belmonte demands sweetness and focus of timbre, elegance of line and phrasing, and perfect vocal placement. Mykkanen had it all. To cite just one example, the seldom-heard aria “Ich baue ganz” fairly glowed with beauty of tone, strength of technique and impeccable musicality. Lyric Opera, are you listening?

The rest of the cast were largely on the same level.

Canadian soprano Sarah Dufresne and American tenor Brenton Ryan were both delightful as the secondary sweethearts Blonde and Pedrillo, respectively.

Her fresh, gleaming soprano nailed every moment in the maid’s music, especially when resisting the amorous advances of Morris Robinson as the oafish harem overseer.

The most physically active of the singers, Ryan was most appealing in voice and manner. He sang with spirit, throwing himself into the semi-action with a comic gusto that never outwore its welcome.

Robinson was the single holdover from Conlon’s 2008 Ravinia cast. The dearth of dialogue didn’t allow him to do much with Osmin in the way of portraiture–the bloodthirsty bully we got here wasn’t particularly funny or lovable. Never mind: Mozart’s vocal writing fit his cavernous bass (still in remarkably good shape) like the proverbial glove.

Members of the Chicago Symphony Chorus, prepared by director Donald Palumbo, capably upheld their walk-on duties as denizens of Selim’s seraglio.

Marin Alsop conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra 5 p.m. Sunday in a Beethoven program featuring the Symphony No. 6 and Violin Concerto with María Dueñas as soloist. ravinia.org

Posted in Performances
No Comments