Stage

In over their heads with 'Das Rheingold'

By JOHN FLEMING
Published April 26, 2007

Wagnerian opera is rare in these parts. In the past 10 years or so, only The Flying Dutchman has been staged by professional companies, once in Orlando, another time in Sarasota. And Wagner performed by a community theater, well, that's unheard of.

So the New Century Opera of Tarpon Springs gets high marks for even attempting Das Rheingold, the first of the four operas in Wagner's Ring cycle.

It is being done in an English translation with Constantine Grame playing a piano reduction of the score, usually performed by a huge orchestra.

But novelty and enterprise go only so far. Wagnerian singing is challenging for the world's leading opera companies, and it's a bit much to ask of amateur performers. Part of the audience at Sunday's matinee voted with its feet, as people slipped out of the theater during the first few scene changes, under cover provided by the voluminous fog machine onstage. The opera, compact by Wagnerian standards at 2 1/2 hours, has no intermission.

The production got off to a good start with the Rhine maidens Mary Anne Boone, Melody Ossi, Azure Rae Bond singing sweetly and cavorting among the rugged outcroppings at the bottom of the river, vividly rendered in James Demetrius' set. Two other female singers were up to the operatic task: Michelle Smith-Sund as the goddess of youth, Freia, and Sara Leigh Buckley as soothsayer Erda.

Except for a solid performance by Todd Donovan, an experienced bass-baritone, as Wotan, the male singing was mostly wretched. Alberich (Dale Laird) and Loge (Jamie Bierchen) have a lot of the heavy vocal lifting in Rheingold, and when the parts are sung as laboriously as they were here, the opera collapses. The English singing was surprisingly hard to understand.

The production is old-fashioned to a fault, complete with horned headgear. Grame, enthusiastically playing the score at a grand piano, as he previously did for The Magic Flute, is a brilliant young talent. He is to be commended for chutzpah. Now maybe it's time for him to get some seasoning with a company that can do this sort of thing right.

Das Rheingold is repeated at 8 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Tarpon Springs Performing Arts Center, 324 Pine St., Tarpon Springs. $14, $16. (727) 942-5605.

MORE OPERA: Geoffrey Agpalo, 20, of Orlando, was the first-prize winner ($3,000) of the Florida Suncoast Opera Guild competition. Second prize ($2,000) went to Tyler Nelson, 27, of Tallahassee, and third prize ($1,000) was awarded to Stephen Ng, 33, of Deland.

MASTER CLASS: Violinist Viviane Hagner will give a master class at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Patel Conservatory of the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center in Tampa, free and open to the public. Hagner is the soloist in the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Florida Orchestra this weekend.

PREMIERES: Jobsite Theater will stage several area premieres in its 2007-08 season, including Boston Marriage by David Mamet (Feb. 21-March 9); A Dream Play, adapted by Caryl Churchill from the Strindberg classic (June 12-29); and Embedded by Tim Robbins (Aug. 14-31). Its season opens Oct. 18-Nov. 4 with a production for Halloween, Gorey Stories, an adaptation of Edward Gorey stories by Stephen Currens, with music by David Aldritch. Also on the agenda: Eleemosynary by Lee Blessing (Jan. 3-20) and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard (April 3-20). The company is in residence at the Shimberg Playhouse of the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. See www.jobsitetheater.org.

John Fleming can be reached at (727) 893-8716 or fleming@sptimes.com.

[Last modified April 26, 2007, 07:28:08]