Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 23, 1994 TAG: 9409240046
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Now he's hobbling across the floor, doing Charles Laughton in ``The Hunchback of Notre Dame,'' now segueing to a mad scientist's laboratory assistant, showing you just the degree of physical deformity he'll aim at Saturday night.
Then someone asks if he's modelling his Opera Roanoke role on anybody in particular and he deadpans, ``All of 'em, dead and alive. I steal pasta off everybody's plate. If I hear a good idea, boy, I incorporate it!''
Loren will star in Giuseppe Verdi's blockbuster tragedy of a bitter, crippled court jester and his victimized daughter, which opens Saturday night for a four-night run at Mill Mountain Theatre. The Opera Roanoke show combines the return of the company's most popular singer in years with Craig Fields' first production as general director. ``Rigoletto'' will play again Monday, Wednesday and Sept. 30 at 8 p.m.
Don't think Loren doesn't know he's got a big public in Roanoke. He enjoys the commotion he can create merely by walking on stage. Since he first brought down the house in ``The Barber of Seville,'' his fees have grown so that it takes special underwriting by local fans to finance his appearance here.
But he also knows that Opera Roanoke isn't exactly the Met, and a lot is riding on his first attempt at the role that Fields says ``is like singing two operas in one night.''
``I think it's the most emotionally complete portrayal of a character in the baritone repertoire. Not only does it make you go through every emotional, psychological change, but it happens on a dime, and it has to come out of a place that makes it real for the artist and the audience,'' said Loren.
Verdi based his opera on a play by Victor Hugo. Set in 16th-century Italy, the title character is a hunchbacked court jester who loathes both his own physical deformity and the shallow courtiers he must amuse each day in the castle of the lascivious Duke of Mantua.
In Hugo's play the jester was an unrelievedly wicked figure, but Verdi altered the original plot by introducing rays of light into Rigoletto's character. The jester jealously guards his daughter, Gilda, from the attentions of the courtiers - but unbeknownst to him, she's being wooed by the duke in the guise of a young student. The bitter Rigoletto mocks Count Ceprano, who's being cuckolded by the insatiable duke, and Ceprano pronounces a curse upon the jester.
After Gilda is seduced in the palace, she throws herself on her father's mercy, at which time the courtiers realize she is indeed his daughter and not the ``mistress'' Rigoletto had previously portrayed her to be. Rigoletto swears vengeance in one of the most thrilling scenes in all of Italian opera and hires a professional assassin to murder the duke.
However, in a typical operatic twist of plot (things are never what they seem in Italian opera) it's not the Duke who is killed, as Count Ceprano's curse finds an ironic fulfillment. The ending is one of the most emotionally rending finales in all 19th-century opera.
Nicholas Loren isn't the only Opera Roanoke veteran returning for this production. Gary Fulsebakke, Allen Huszti and Wayne Kompelien take smaller roles. Mezzo-soprano Michelle Sarkesian, who was a smash as Carmen two years ago, isn't letting the fact that she's five months pregnant stop her from singing the role of Maddalena. Mezzo-soprano Rita Litchfield-Good, also seen in ``Carmen,'' sings Giovanna.
Newcomers include Yale grad Brent Weber as the randy Duke of Mantua, Lawrence Evans as Monterone, and Carol Chickering as Gilda.
Fields describes this ``Rigoletto'' as a ``traditional production,'' though there will be a steambath scene that would have surprised Verdi. Fields is known for fresh stagings that manage to throw new light on old favorites without indulging in the kind of bizarre eccentricities that are the trademarks of directors like Peter Sellars. In this ``Rigoletto,'' though, he's playing it mostly straight.
The opera will be sung in the original Italian, but Paul Zweifel of Virginia Tech will again provide English supertitles, translated and adapted for computer projection by himself.
``It's funny how Verdi changed the original intentions of Huge's play, especially regarding the characterization of Rigoletto,'' said Fields. ``He was originally an absolutely black-hearted, conscienceless figure. But Verdi knew this wouldn't sell as an opera, so he ennobled Rigoletto with some of the most beautiful music he's ever penned. Like he always did, he zeroed in on the father/daughter relationship, and he makes it magnificent.''
Nicholas Loren said he was coached for ``Rigoletto'' by legendary baritone Sherrill Milnes, who sang the role many times at the Met.
``The last thing Sherrill Milnes said to me before I came here was, `Don't forget, we see two different people: the jester at court and the real man alone and with Gilda,'' recalled Loren.
Music Director Victoria Bond, whose current Opera Roanoke contract was not renewed by the opera board, will conduct in the pit. Roanoke attorney Joseph Logan, who stepped down as board president earlier this week, emphasized that there was ``no dissatisfaction'' with Bond.
``Victoria did a good job for us. The fact that she was leaving [the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra] just made it a natural time,'' said Logan. Bond will conduct her own opera ``Travels'' as the second show in the current season. Thereafter, according to Fields, Opera Roanoke will hire conductors who are specialists in a given repertoire for future productions.
As the result of an independent consultant's study earlier this year, Fields assumed the new title of general director on July 1. Former assistant Bobbi Slough begins as managing director Oct. 1.
Already decided for future seasons will be Puccini's ``Madame Butterfly'' in fall 1995 and Monteverdi's ``Orfeo'' in fall 1996.
Opera Roanoke's ``Rigoletto'': Saturday, 8 p.m., Mill Mountain Theatre in Roanoke. Also Monday, Wednesday and Oct. 30. $25 and $22. 982-2742, 342-5746).
by CNB