Opera Review: Fox Does Politics

Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble flushes The Cunning Little Vixen.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Into the woods: the Fox (left) and the Vixen (Rachel Hall) meet cute in Janáček's opera.
Photo by Brian Long © 2017 Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble

In the remarkable string of operas that the Czech composer Leoš Janáček crafted in the last years of his life, it is Příhody lišky Bystroušky (usually represented in English as "The Cunning Little Vixen" that stands apart. Based on a Czech newspaper cartoon that was popular in Janáček's hometown of Brno, it is the only one of his operas that has any appeal to a younger audience. And yet, as shown in an intriguing new production by Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble. the Vixen is a deeply relevant opera whose sunny libretto masks some strong political subtext.

Opera Review: The Sleazy Life in Paris

Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble mounts Massenet's Manon.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

In a scene from Act III of Massenet's Manon, the title character (Olivia Betzen)
works her wiles on the hapless Des Grieux (Sean Christensen.)
Photo by Mark Baker for Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble.

When presenting the classic opera repertory, sometimes it is good to do a lot with very little. That is the mantra behind this handsome but economical staging of Massenet's Manon, currently running at the Nagelberg Theater, located deep within CUNY's Baruch College. This Manon is part of Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble's ongoing summer festival. Traditional in its costuming and yet modern in the staging approach of director Victoria Crutchfield, it proved a satisfying experience on Monday night.

Opera Review: Not the Jack You Know

Dell'Arte Opera presents Falstaff...by Antonio Salieri.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Windsor Forest in a wrestling singlet: Gary Ramsey (center) stars in Falstaff.
Photo by Brian Long © 2014 Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble.

Thanks to the 1984 Academy Award-winning film Amadeus, the composer Antonio Salieri is, to most people "the guy who killed Mozart."  Last week, the Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble, currently in the middle of a festival celebrating operatic adaptations of the work of Shakespeare, chose to mount Salieri's 1799 opera Falstaff, ossia il tre Burle ("The Three Jokes"), providing some much needed healing for this unjustly ignored composer, whose forty operas lie mostly in the locked desk drawers of history.

Opera Review: The SPQR-Word

Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble presents La Clemenza di Tito.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Hilary Ginther (left) as Sesto and Elana Gleason as Vitellia plot and plan in
Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble's new production of La Clemenza di Tito.
Photo by Angel Roy © 2013 Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble

Of the mature operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, it is La Clemenza di Tito that has the lowest reputation. The composer dashed off the work in ten days to meet a ridiculous crunch deadline--the coronation of Leopold II as King of Bohemia. The libretto, recycled from a Metastasio story, is somewhat dated with an 18th century approach to classical drama and politics and a musical style that clashes between Mozart's late-period innovations and the stage conventions of opera seria.

Opera Preview: What Goes On in the Capital

Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble's Standard Repertoire Project goes to Rome.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Roman emperors Nero (left) and Titus (right) are the stars of the
summer Standard Repertory Project as Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble
celebrates its tenth anniversary season.

For the past decade, Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble has provided a home for young singers, and its Standard Repertoire Project has gotten those singers opportunities on the stage. For its tenth anniversary season music director Christopher Fecteau has put together a formidable one-two combination of operas: Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito and Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea.

Opera Review: The Heroine and the Terror

Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble mounts Dialogues des Carmelites.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"So that's how this opera ends?" Jennifer Moore as Sister Blanche in Dialogues des Carmelites.
Photo by Angel Roy © 2012 Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble

Presenting François Poulenc's 1953 opera Dialogues des Carmélites may seem like an insanely ambitious project for a small New York opera company. On Friday night, Christopher Fecteau's Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble did not just meet the challenges of this work (based on the real-life execution of French nuns during the Reign of Terror) but surpassed it, delivering a raw, potent performance of great clarity and simple faith.

At first glance, Carmélites is the story of Blanche, a shrinking violet born to a French aristocratic family. Clumsy, terrified and unsure of herself, she finds a safe haven in a strict order of Carmelite nuns. Their lives are destroyed by the anti-religious fervor of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. Finally, the nuns face the guillotine singing a chorus of Salve Regina, one that is ultimately silenced by the falling blade.

Jennifer Moore (heard in this company's 2010 one-off performance of Königskinder as well as last year's Ariadne auf Naxos) walked Blanche's dramatic arc in Act I, rising from a timid figure into a full-fledged dramatic heroine. She brought acting focus to the role and clarity of tone, highlighted by the simple set and minimal costumes. Poulenc's shimmering, radiant score brought forth the small joys of Blanche's friendship with Sister Constance (the fine soprano Maria Alu) and the stern guidance of the Prioress (Leanne Gonzalez-Singer) The latter's death scene at the end of Act I was wrenching, a foretaste of the dark events to come.

Opera Review: There's a Riot Goin' On

Downtown Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble occupies Carmen.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A fresh approach to bullfighting at Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble's "occupied" Carmen.
Photo amalgamation by the author, who does not endorse bullfighting or pepper spray.

George Bizet's Carmen is often mounted as grand opera, with crowds of milling orange sellers, bandallerias and marching children creating a whirlwind portrait of life in 19th century Seville. This new production by Christopher Fecteau's Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble (part of the company's summer repertory project) takes the opposite approach.

Using the confines of the black-box 13th St. Theater to maximum advantage, director Knud Adams added elements all too familiar to New Yorkers conversant with the Occupy Wall Street protests. Citizens were repeatedly "kettled" and threatened with pepper spray.  Don José (Adam Juran) was a riot control cop with safety vest and ready baton. Carmen (Elizabeth Shoup) was a lithesome leather-jacketed presence with an attitude to match, surrounded by an admiring throng of police, punks and riot grrls.

Dell'Arte's summer Standard Repertoire Project is geared toward helping younger singers move from the conservatory environment into the professional world. This was Ms. Shoup's debut in the complex title role, and she brought a dry, matter-of-fact edge to this familiar character. Although her singing was strongest in the two famous arias in Act I, she compensated with go-to-hell attitude and a refreshing lack of the standard clichés associated with this famous character.

The Best Little Opera House in the Bowery

Christopher Fecteau talks about life at the Amato Opera.

Christopher Fecteau, leader of dell'Arte Opera Ensemble.
Photo by Carl M. Jenks for CarlMJenksPhotography.com

The death of impresario Anthony Amato has sent repercussions through the operatic world of New York City. Conductor Christopher Fecteau leads the dell'Arte Opera Ensemble, which draws some of the same audience. At the request of Superconductor, Mr. Fecteau shared some memories of the fiery conductor and life at the little opera house on the Bowery.

"I spent most of three seasons as an assistant conductor and then associate music director at Amato." During that time, Mr. Fecteau conducted more than a dozen staples of the repertoire. "My first performance as a conductor there was Madama Butterfly. I had conducted three full staging rehearsals (no time with the orchestra--the orchestra never rehearsed.)  When I got to the theater for that particular Sunday matinee, I met the four principals backstage--only one of which I had rehearsed with. That's just the way it was done."

"As one might expect," he continues, "there were some nights that were magic, and others that were just maddening. Tony was a tough taskmaster. There was really only one way to do things: his way." He adds: "I slowly--and stubbornly--learned that his way was actually quite a fine way to do things. The consistency of that single-mindedness was oart if the glue that held productions together."

The Amato Opera after it closed in 2009.
The building is listed at being worth $6.95 million.
Photo by Michael Maren.

According to Mr. Fecteau, an opera production could have six casts, three or four different conductors, a handful of different pianists and a chamber orchestra made up of faces that were always changing. The company had over 60 operas in its repertory during its run at 319 Bowery. The theater had only 107 seats. At one performance of Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chenier, James Levine was spotted in the audience.

"It was impossible not to learn there," he says. "In addition to Tony, my teachers were the numerous dedicated singers in principal roles on down through the chorus Plus, the pianists, orchestra musicians and people like Irene Kim, who managed to keep that strange big-little machine running."

Mr. Fecteau explains that the most direct inheritor of the Amato 'mantle' is Amore Opera. Amore, he says "inherited most of the costume and set stock of the 60-year-old company." Following in the footsteps of Amato and playing in small spaces in lower Manhattan, the Amore Opera just presented the New York stage premiere of I Due Figaro a non-Beaumarchais operatic sequel to The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro.

"The biggest lessons I learned, however, were not musical, but personal," he says. "Loyalty was Tony's absolute strongest suit.  If you were good to him, to the company, to the people around him, he was good to you. In the long run, I no longer fit in at Amato, and Tony gave me a somewhat ungraceful shove out the door. I thank him for that, because it would have been difficult for me to leave that magical place in any other way."

Opera Review: Ariadne on E. 13th St.

dell'Arte Opera Ensemble takes Strauss downtown.

Creative Team: Hugo von Hoffmannsthal (l.) and Richard Strauss
Photo © 195 Archives of the Salzburg Festval.

Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos is set onstage and backstage at a private theater belonging to "The Richest Man in Vienna." On Thursday night, the Dell'Arte Opera ensemble mounted the opera in the Little 13th Street Theater as part of their 2011 Standard Repertory Project. Though the surroundings were less opulent, the magic of this unique opera came through.


A collaboration between Strauss and his frequent librettist Hugo von Hoffmannsthal, Ariadne juxtaposes a high-flown opera seria with a burlesque troupe. Thanks to the whims of their patron, the two theater groups are forced to share the stage, to "liven up" the desolate island of Naxos. The work straddles three centuries, fusing the comic writing of Mozart, the majesty of Wagner and Strauss' own particular genius for the theater.

As Ariadne, Jane Shivick displayed a powerful instrument that was almost too big for the tiny theater. Her best moment was the low note ("Totenreich!") in "Er gibt ein reich", though she sang majestically in the final scene with Bacchus. Kevin Courtemanche did well with Bacchus' murderous, high tessitura, an example of Strauss' unkind writing for the tenor voice.


The high-strung Composer dominates the Prologue. Juli Borst has good acting ability and a resonant mezzo, especially in "O der Esel! Die Freud'! Du allmächtiger Gott." But Ms. Borst's voice hardened under pressure, expressing panic at the backstage creative crisis. In a final touch, the Composer returned to gaze proudly at the united Bacchus and Ariadne. Also notable: a strong spoken performance from Erik Kramer as the Haushofmeister, and Jack White as the Music Master who tries to keep the Composer from flying off the handle.

Zerbinetta is the star of the aforementioned comedians, and one of the most challenging parts for a high coloratura soprano. Jennifer Rossetti met the challenges of the ten-minute "Grossmachtige Prinzessin", including the high F notes called for on the fioratura passages. More importantly, she imbued the part with an easy sexuality and had good chemistry with the four players in the troupe. Their following quintet was more than an anti-climax: it was a highlight of the show.

This is the favorite opera of dell'Arte music director Christopher Fecteau. Leading a stripped-down 11-piece band (with a synthesizer adding to the orchestra and providing the timpani) Mr. Fecteau brought out the wit and humor of the Prologue. His little band changed idioms repeatedly, accompanying the comedy troupe with grace, switching to sweeping and sweeping lyricism for the plight of the stranded princess. Best of all, the conductor became involved with the performance, occasionally meeting the eyes of a harlequin player appealing for help from the small pit. But even conductors cannot sway a princess or a Zerbinetta.