Yiddish-inspired concert in Hill school ‘astonishing’

By MICHAEL CARUSO

The Chestnut Hill Community Association’s season of concerts in Pastorius Park ran into weather-related problems again last week. The Wednesday night Klingon Klez concert was forced by the rain to move inside to the auditorium of the Springside School, the same fate that had befallen the previous week’s ensemble, City Rhythm Orchestra. But the Delaware Valley Opera Company’s good luck held on Saturday evening, enabling the troupe to open its production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro as planned on the lawn behind the Hermitage Mansion in Roxborough.

Klingon Klez was luckier than City Rhythm Orchestra, however, in that it nonetheless drew an impressively large audience to hear its unique blend of traditional Yiddish-inspired yet jazz-energized music. Its repertoire sported songs with titles such as “The Trolley That Ran Away,” “Zayde (Grandpa Dance),” “Dire Gelt (Pay Da Rent), “The Funk Tune” and “Richard’s Bar Mitzvah.” Its performance style veered precariously close to completely out of control. Perhaps because of that, its playing and singing encouraged many members of the audience to dance in the aisles.

I found myself both amazed and thrilled by it all. Having grown up with Jewish neighbors with whom I’m still very close, I wasn’t unfamiliar with the musical foundations of Klingon Klez’s style. I was, however, unaccustomed to hearing that music performed with such originality. The melodic and harmonic inventiveness plus the rhythmic vitality were astonishing, all the more so because they seemed so convincingly authentic in their organic derivation from the historic roots of the music. By investing the music with contemporary styles of improvisation, Klingon Klez guarantees that it continues to thrive in the modern world and not merely exist in a museum.

MODERN MOZART?

In her program notes for the Delaware Valley Opera Company’s production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, stage director Connie Koppe writes: “The decision to change the time period of any opera should not be done frivolously.”

She couldn’t be more correct. Koppe might also have added that changing the time and place of an opera from its original setting to one closer to that of our own period is only the first step of a director’s responsibility. A director still needs to convey to the singing actors her theatrical concept of the opera, perhaps all the more thoroughly since the performers won’t have the protective garb of historical distance with which to cover themselves. Rather, they’ll be left motivationally “naked” in their nearly modern costumes.

Mozart ‘s Figaro, set to the second of Beaumarchais’ famous 18th-century trilogy of revolutionary plays, is an opera that is very much based on the situations of its epoch, even though both its story and its score raise it to the level of timeless universality. Written and composed shortly before the French Revolution sounded the death knell of the feudal aristocracy’s stranglehold on European society, its plot revolves around the intention by the Spanish Count Almaviva to revive the infamous “droit du seigneur”— the right of the feudal lord to “deflower” any and all of his female servants on her wedding night — even though he, himself, had previously outlawed this outrageous custom.

Koppe’s decision to shift the setting to the 1930s in Italy was not ludicrous by any means, but it wasn’t without its problems. Contrary to what she wrote in her program notes, Benito Mussolini never pushed his monarch aside. In fact, his maintaining the governmental structure of the kingdom of Italy throughout the two decades of his rule — allowing King Victor Emmanuel II to reign — was one of the most brilliant strokes of his evil genius because it cloaked his dictatorship with the veil of legitimacy. Northern Italy was a particularly inappropriate choice of a specific place, because the notion of “droit du seigneur” had long disappeared from that region of Italy that was most modern. It was in the north that Italian women first began to free themselves from the dominance of men, whereas it was in the south in general — and Sicily in particular — that those feudal ideas still reared their ugly heads.

Still, the concept could have worked theatrically had Koppe created the always-needed dramatic excitement onstage. Admittedly this was hampered by the last minute indisposition of Michael Anderson as Almaviva, which in turn produced a silent actor miming the role while an offstage singer sang it. All the same, directors shouldn’t rely on the change of setting to make an opera “relevant.” That’s their job — regardless of time and place.

The production’s finest singer was Alan Rosenbaum as Figaro. Although he’s far older than the athletic Figaro of Beaumarchais’ story, Rosenbaum’s voice is so lovely and he sang so beautifully that one soon ceased to care. Susan Blair was mightily impressive as the devilish Cherubino. She sang and acted this difficult trouser role more convincingly than anyone I’ve previously encountered in more than three decades of opera-going. Melissa Primavera as Susanna also sang well, and Michelle Scanlon’s musical direction and keyboard accompaniment were admirable.

The Marriage of Figaro continues July 22 and 24 at 8 p.m. Puccini’s Tosca rounds out the season August 7, 12 and 14 at 8 p.m.