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La Cenerentola Opera Review for Vue Weekly I reviewed Edmonton Opera's production of La Cenerentola for Vue Weekly earlier this month. I've never heard so many laughs in an opera house.

Mrs. Us and I recently did something we've never done together before: we attended an Edmonton Opera production. She'd seen several operas previously, most of them old Edmonton Opera shows, while I'd seen a few of theirs and some other unrelated productions. Neither of us are culture snobs, but we do enjoy some of that stuff. Unfortunately, Edmonton Opera (and the Symphony) tends to only produce the usual Hits-of-the-Classics-schlock that isn't worth bothering with. Neither she nor I are especially interested in Mozart, or Verdi, or Puccini, and Gilbert & Sullivan aren't fucking opera anyway. (You'd never know it from their repertoire, though.) The only good production I've ever seen out of that company was one they did about five years ago of Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle paired with Schoenberg's Erwartung. That was a risky production, based on a foreign adaptation, and it was fucking brilliant. She and I both saw it, separately, and still talk about how good it was. We wish they would take chances with their repertoire more often, but history suggests that's not likely to happen anytime soon. However, through her employer, Mrs. Us was offered some discounted tickets for their current production and we decided to give it a try. I've actively avoided the Jubilee Auditorium since the last time I saw George Carlin there. That concert, which took place only a few months before the maestro died, was wretchedly uncomfortable for me. The show was fine, but the recently renovated Jubilee Auditorium seemed even more claustrophobically tiny. I am not a short, narrow, shallow fellow. I spent that entire show with my feet off the ground, because my knees were jammed into the seat before me, and leaning forward, because my shoulders were too wide to exist within the space allotted one seat. So, I sat hunched forward, knees propped, a mass of precariously balanced tension for three hours. Carlin was ace, testing new material and all, but everything other than him that was murder. It was not an experience I was keen to repeat. Thankfully, perhaps because we had semi-upgraded seats this time, I found my level of comfort to be tolerable. However, strangely, even though we occupied the same seats during both halves of the program, I found my spot much less comfortable during the second half. The first half of the show consisted of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, and the second half was Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci. Of the two, of course I had heard of I Pagliacci, whose one (hit) aria is as iconic as the image of the titular clown. I'd never heard of the Cavalleria Rusticana previously, and after hearing it I'm not surprised why that is. Completely unremarkable, not at all memorable, and extremely bland, but obviously Italian. The grossly unbalanced narrative sucked, the staging was ludicrous and baffling, and the pacing beyond oafish. The story centres around a woman whose man has left her for an old flame. This old flame is currently a different man's woman. During Easter celebrations in a small Italian town, eventually this scandal is unleashed and the two men duel. The tresspassing man is suddenly killed, and the opera ends. At one point, a pretty pathetic Passion of the Christ (and/or Stations of the Cross) wanders across the jolly singing stage, consisting of one doofus Jesus and a pathetic Roman soldier bumbling after him. We laughed. Completely forgettable; completely meh. We wandered during the intermission and shared a hot chocolate prior to the start of I Pagliacci. The second opera, at least, wasn't awful. I wasn't as impressed by it as I expected I might be, but that one tune certainly has legs. The lead tenor handled the vocals well enough, but he also looked very unwell. Strenuous activity, such as walking across the stage, appeared to exhaust him. He managed the role, though. The rest of the focal cast did as well. The biggest problems, material aside, had to do with the direction and the choreography. I will repeat most of Mrs. Us' opinions on the subject, as she's better informed than I. Basically, the chorus in both operas did nothing but stand around. When they did move, the choreography seemed to consist of: stand still, walk back-and-forth, shuffle, look out of place. The people on the stage seemed to not know what to do with themselves. It was as though they learned their parts, but had no idea of the context of the work. It all looked awkward as hell. The leads fared marginally better, but not by much. Grabbing someone by the shirt and holding him/her there for the duration of entire musical measures while singing at them is as unlikely as it is ineffective. Lazy director. Chances are we won't bother revisiting the opera any time soon. Their current season is more of the same. However, I'll be glad to try them again in the event that they actually try performing something interesting again.

"Tosca" by Giacomo Puccini