Opera with up-tempo attitude

The St. Petersburg Opera and artistic director Mark Sforzini welcome a challenge, be it performing four operas in 18 months or writing one.

By John Fleming, Times Performing Arts Critic
Published December 27, 2007

The Elixir of Love
The St. Petersburg Opera Company performs Donizetti's opera at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Palladium Theater, 253 Fifth Ave. N, St. Petersburg. $18.50-$70. The group also will do highlights from the opera at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Palladium. $15-$30. (727) 822-3590; www.mypalladium.org.

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Mark Sforzini, artistic director of the St. Petersburg Opera Company, has been immersed in the Donizetti opera L'Elisir D'Amore (The Elixir of Love) in preparation for conducting performances this weekend. It's the company's fourth production in the past 18 months, following The Barber of Seville, Die Fledermaus and La Boheme.

L'Elisir D'Amore, premiered in 1832, is the comic pastoral tale of Nemorino's efforts to win the love of Adina, with help from a magic potion by the quack Dr. Dulcamara.

For 15 years, Sforzini was principal bassoon with the Florida Orchestra. He is also a composer whose music has been played by the orchestra and other groups in the Tampa Bay area. This year, having been commissioned to write an opera based on The Great Gatsby, he left the orchestra to devote himself full time to opera and composing. He talked with the St. Petersburg Times during a break from rehearsal.

Why did you decide to do L'Elisir D'Amore?

I felt it was time we did a bel canto opera. I wanted to do something comic around the New Year's time. We've been doing Boheme, Barber - kind of top 10 stuff. Elisir is kind of top 20, and not as commonly done as these others, so it's a branching out for us.

Artistically, Elisir is a big challenge. You have to have a phenomenal cast of principals to do it. It's a big sing for Adina, it's a big sing for Nemorino, and it's a big sing for Dulcamara. And it's a huge chorus.

What are the big chorus numbers?

Che vuol dire is the number they sing when Dulcamara arrives in town. Che vuol dire is to Elisir as Ascot Gavotte is to My Fair Lady. The chorus is also there in the big quartet at the end of Act 1, singing all this cool repetitive stuff underneath the four principals. The chorus is in the opening of Act 2. It's in the finale, of course. The ladies chorus is in the big quartet of Act 2. The chorus part is 100 pages long.

I'm impressed by your principal singers' credentials.

As word keeps spreading about what we're doing, I think the level keeps getting higher for people who want to come here. We had nationally advertised auditions last March and had about 65 people attend in those two days. And then probably another 35 people either arranged individual appointments or sent CDs or DVDs. There's also a steady stream of six to eight people a month who are sending us e-mails and asking to audition.

How do you prepare for conducting an opera?

I'll sit down at the piano and go through the score. And then I'll listen to a variety of recordings and DVDs, at least three, to get a wide sampling of how people have done this. This is the first one of the operas we've done that I hadn't played as an orchestra member at least once.

Which DVDs and CDs of Elisir did you check out?

The DVD of Vienna State Opera with Anna Netrebko was one. There's a James Levine DVD with Pavarotti and Kathleen Battle at the Met. I have a Joan Sutherland recording. I try to study a score and figure out what I think about it. I just don't automatically buy into the standard cuts.

For example, we're doing a whole section of the quartet in Act 2 that none of those three recordings did, but to me, it's one of the most interesting sections of the whole opera; it modulates to these really fascinating key changes. It's a section that is normally cut, about 90 seconds, but I'm keeping it in.

What do you learn as a composer yourself from working on a Donizetti opera?

Not to be afraid of a little repetition, for one thing.

That's a good lesson, I think. Modern aesthetics discourages repetition. But these old operas, they repeat all over the place.

Right, the words as well as the actual music. Even in Puccini, there's frequent repetition of motifs and melodies.

I enjoy knowing these operas so intimately because it helps me to understand things like what's a good vowel sound in certain registers. Also from a dramatic standpoint, seeing how they put these stories together. Where you need a solo aria, where you need a trio, where an orchestral interlude might work.

How's your Gatsby opera coming?

I'm about a third of the way done. I don't know what it's going to be called.

What is done?

Several solo arias, some of which may get cut because I plan on writing more than I'm actually going to use in the end. There's a duet for the two leading characters, the ones drawn from Gatsby and Daisy, although they won't have those names. And then a quartet involving those two characters and her parents.

One of the things that will be different from the novel is that the first act will occur back in time, when Daisy was younger and before Gatsby went off to war. So her parents are there. There is going to be a lot of emphasis in this opera on how things are passed from one generation to the next generation.

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

[Last modified December 24, 2007, 16:06:44]