‘L’Italiana in Algeri’

The Opera Festival of New Jersey opens its 20th anniversary season with this early Gioacchino Rossini work.

By: Stuart Duncan
   Gioacchino Rossini was young when he composed L’Italiana in Algeri — just 21. But he already was at work in Venice and was developing a reputation for being prolific and versatile.
   In those days (the early 19th century) every Italian opera theater was expected to present dozens of new works. This particular year, 1813, Rossini had already written two when a colleague stumbled in attempting to meet the deadline for a new work. Young Rossini was commissioned to take over. He had about three weeks.
   The Opera Festival of New Jersey has selected Rossini’s early work as the opening production of an abbreviated but busy season (13 performances of three separate operas in three weeks). With impeccable casting, genuinely creative and witty staging by director Leon Major and superb leadership in the pit by conductor Daniel Beckwith, the evening is filled with charm and runs the gamut between giggles and hearty belly laughs.
   You will sense in the first few moments that a treat is in store. A few Algerian corsairs wander onto the stage, carrying an old-fashioned, wind-up Victrola. A few more assemble with old 78-rpm records. The machine is readied and a record drops into place for the needle. It’s the wrong record, the wrong overture, and is hastily removed. Only then, as more corsairs and a few women of the harem arrive, do we launch into Rossini’s overly long overture.
   It will continue that way — clever staging in exquisite taste, coupled with confident, strong performers, the seven principals reaching a first-act finale with a septet ("Sento un fremito") that brought roars of approval from the knowing McCarter audience. Among the highlights: Eduardo Chama, as Mustafa, the Bey of Algiers, and Michael Colvin, as Lindoro, a young Italian enslaved to the Bey, singing a duet as they bicycle around the stage, in and out of the wings. Or Maria Zifchak, as Isabella, an Italian lady, shipwrecked on the shores of Algiers, singing a lovely aria from the front seat of a magnificent vintage touring car. Later, by Act II, she will sing accompanied by a manicure. And Chama will sing while sun-bathing and later devouring platefuls of pasta.
   Even the supertitles join in the fun: When Isabella has her first glimpse of the Bey preparing to exhibit his machismo to overpower his prey, she giggles, "What a mug! What an outfit!"
   One must mention Tonna Miller as Mustafa’s wife, desperately trying to avoid being discarded; Alexis Barthelemy as her personal slave and confidante; Keith Phares as the Captain of the Corsairs; and Valeriano Lanchas as Taddeo, the faithful puppy-dog of a hopeful lover to Isabella. The roles are so well-balanced and so deliciously performed that the opening-day audience was loathe to pick favorites. By the final curtain, all received thunderous applause and, when all stepped forward for a final bow, the well-earned standing ovation.
   And, almost unnoticed, with lyric cavatinas, patter songs and even patriotic sentiments in Isabella’s arias (Italy was occupied by Napoleonic forces at the time), Rossini came close to blending opera buffa with opera seria, a combination Mozart knew well.
   A year later, Rossini tried to follow up his success with a sequel, The Turkish Man in Italy. It promptly flopped. Of course, he didn’t have the talents of Mr. Beckwith, Mr. Major or the magnificent seven.
Italiana in Algeri will be sung again at McCarter Theatre, 91 University Place, Princeton, July 5, 11, 8 p.m., July 15, 17, 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $25-$90. For information, call (609) 919-0199. On the Web: www.operafest.org