Rossini Afloat

THE IDEA OF A JUKEBOX OPERA using Rossini’s music is a terrific one – so good, in fact, that the world-premiere production of Tenor Overboard at the Glimmerglass Festival left me wishing for more. I don’t think the piece went at all far enough in exploring the possibilities, yet it’s a good-enough production that it may seem sufficient to many.

Fran Daniel Laucerica as Dante, Jasmine
Habersham as Mimi, Reilly Nelson
as Gianna and Armando Contreras
as Luca. Photo: Karli Cadel/
The Glimmerglass Festival

The conceit is to get a handful of quarrelsome characters aboard a steamship bound for Italy, so that they may sort their differences in this classically confined space. Thus daughters Gianna (Reilly Nelson) and Mimi (Jasmine Habersham) are fleeing their overbearing father, Petronio (Stefano de Peppo) and end up winning places in a vocal quartet suddenly (and way too conveniently) shy a pair of members.

We began with a rousing version of the overture from La scala di seta, proving again that music director Joseph Colaneri and the Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra are potent forces, sending a rich, focused sound into the acoustically benevolent Alice Busch Opera Theater – and an especially great treat after last season’s lawn performances with piped-in music.

As an opera recital, Tenor Overboard succeeds brilliantly. Giving singers with excellent voices a best-of menu of Rossini arias and ensemble pieces all but guarantees a lovely experience. But there were two shows going on here, each in a different language. The plot, such as it was, was performed in English; the musical portions switched to Italian. Thus, as we learn of Petronio’s frustration with his independence-seeking daughters, he sings an aria (“Il lamento di Petronio”) drawn from the Thieving Magpie’s “M’affretto di mandarvi i contrassegni,” but re-lyricked for the occasion.

I’m not fluent in Italian, so I consulted the supertitles to see what was going on. There we had the English version of the number, which could have formed the basis for English lyrics to be sung. But if the supertitled version was any indication, those lines lacked the sparkle and well-crafted rhymes that bring a lyric to life.

In Rossini’s day, the traditions of commedia dell’arte informed the comic operas, offering archetypal characters whose desires were understood at the outset. Musical theater has matured since then, so that even our comedies can include more complicated characters with more sophisticated wants. Tenor Overboard is intended to be a farce, but its characters aren’t driven by farce-like intentions. For example: Petronio boards the ship – appropriately named the S.S. Lindoro – because he’s giving up his Hester Street food cart and returning to his native country. Going towards, not giving up, is farce motivation, and book-writer Ken Ludwig knows better. He is, after all, the author of “Lend Me a Tenor,” as wonderfully dizzying a farce as ever there was.

Stefano de Peppo as Petronio
Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival

Farce thrives on structural elements like a confined space and a time limit, and a ship crossing gives both, as Anything Goes deftly shows. Tenor Overboard (deliberately or not) pays homage to that show by giving de Peppo, as Petronio, a scene in the brig, where he cuts loose in a well-played comic monologue complete with obligatory baseball references. He has the comic delivery of a vaudeville master, and a voice to tear the roof off, as he demonstrated in an aria re-fashioned from II viaggio a Reims.

Onto the ship come a blustery film star, Angostura Lamont (Keely Futterer) and her imperious manager, Cedric (Gregory Feldmann), under the impression that they’re bound for Hollywood. Angostura is an overbearing, blowsy blonde who is accustomed to getting her way, and Cedric tries to work it out for her. Futterer is an amusing enough actor without overplaying, but I suppose the temptation was too great. When she switched gears to sing, a different person was revealed, one possessed of a deft, colorful voice, as her Semiramide aria demonstrated.

We also had the ship’s captain, commedia’s Il Capitano, played by Matthew Pearce with charming charisma.

The Act One finale suddenly incorporates beach balls into the proceedings, drawn from L’italiana in Algeri, underscoring the problem of lacking those string “I want” motivations among the characters in order to drive conflict. Act Two begins with an actual Rossini recital, placed in the context of shipboard entertainment, and our leads were truly able to excel.

Matthew Pearce as The Captain, Fran
Daniel Laucerica as Dante, and Matt
Grady as First Mate. Photo:
Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival

Nelson and Habersham were particularly pleasing, and were showcased enough to prove it, but special mention should be given to Armando Contreras as Luca and Fran Daniel Laucerica as Dante, with whom our ingenues eventually will be united.

To illustrate the wide-ranging amount of Rossini wrangled into the piece by Maestro Colaneri, in addition to the operas mentioned above, we had music from La donna del Iago, The Barber of Seville, Tancredi, La cenerentola, The Siege of Corinth, and  William Tell (the familiar storm music from that opera’s overture); we even dipped into Les soireé musicales and the Stabat mater.

Excellent work here, too, by the designers, including James Noone for his sets, including a ship they should save for an Anything Goes; Robert Wierzel for the fluid lighting; and the colorful costumes by Loren Shaw. Francesca Zambello, who came up with the jukebox Rossini idea, co-directed with choreographer Brenna Corner. The opera runs through August 18, 2022.

Tenor Overboard
Music by Gioachino Rossini
Book by Ken Ludwig
Conducted by Joseph Colaneri
Directed by Francesca Zambello and Brenna Corner
Glimmerglass Festival, Cooperstown, NY, July 25.