Upcoming Toledo Opera offerings mix tragic fare, lighter side
Published Sunday, March 24, 2019
Toledo Opera Executive Director Suzanne Rorick promises that the upcoming season of the Toledo Opera has something for everyone.
Given that the present season boasts such operatic stalwarts as The Magic Flute, Carmen, and the company’s upcoming production of The Ballad of Baby Doe, Rorick’s comment is more than just hyperbole. Consider the 2019-20 lineup: Macbeth, La Boheme, and a pairing of Derrick Wang’s Scalia/Ginsburg with Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial By Jury.
“Toledo Opera has become the final launching pad for a number of the hottest voices now singing at the New York Metropolitan and to prove this, we are starting the 2019 season with our gala featuring soprano Jennifer Rowley,” Rorick said.
Rowley last appeared on the Valentine Theatre stage singing the title role in the Toledo Opera’s 2017 production of Samuel Barber’s Vanessa. The Ohio native exited the back door of the theater and stepped onto the stage of the New York Metropolitan Opera the next week.
This season she has taken the Met by storm, singing the title role in Tosca and Musetta in La Bohéme. “She holds such affinity and gratitude for the opportunities afforded her by our company, that she has graciously agreed to be this year’s featured Gala artist,” Rorick said.
The one-night only event takes place Oct. 26 with dinner in the grand lobby of the Valentine followed by a solo concert with Rowley. Package tickets are $200, and the concert $100.
The main season features two powerhouse operas followed by an evening of lighter fare. Tag-teaming the opening lineup are the kings of Italian romanticism, Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini.
Verdi’s darkly brooding setting of Shakespeare’s Macbeth opens the season. The granddaddy of all operatic tragedies, the Scottish play is the tale of one man’s struggle with fate as he rises to power, only to be undone by his own greed and inability to act with honor. It was last performed in Toledo more than 20 years ago.
The work opens with Macbeth’s prophetic encounter with three witches foretelling his coming glory. As their predictions come to pass, the tragic hero, goaded by his power-hungry spouse, commits sin after sin, even murder, to force the hand of fate. As karma demands, however, he meets his own demise as payment for his greed.
Baritone Mark Rucker and soprano Othalie Graham, who last made their appearance in Toledo Opera’s production of Aïda, return to the stage in the roles.
Sung in Italian with English super-titles, the show is slated for two performance, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 4 and 2 p.m. Oct. 6 at the Valentine Theatre. A student performance will be at 7 p.m. Oct. 2.
The season continues with a work ranked among the most-performed operas each year, according to operasense.com (598 times during the 2017-18 season). It has been eight years since the Toledo Opera’s last mounting of Puccini’s La Bohéme.
The work details the lives of a group of starving artists who live in the top floor garret of an unheated building in the middle of 1830s Paris. In the dark of a freezing midwinter night, poet Rodolfo meets the seamstress Mimi, whose candle has gone out and asks him for help. It is, of course, love at first sight.
The remainder of the opera details love exploits of the friends as they struggle to survive. Amid some of the most beautiful music ever penned, Mimi tragically dies of consumption.
In addition to all-star principals, the production will feature the Toledo Opera Chorus, the Toledo Opera Children’s Chorus, and the Toledo Symphony. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 7 and 2 p.m. Feb. 9 at the Valentine Theatre, with a student night at the opera at 7 p.m. Feb. 5
The season closes with a double bill showcasing the lighter side of opera.
“I have been wanting to stage these two one-acts for a while now,” executive director Rorick said. “This is the sixth in our series offering contemporary American operas. The one we have in mind for next season is one of the best that has been premiered in recent years. We’re paring it with a request made by Toledo Opera audiences.”
Opening the evening is Derrick Wang’s comedy of unlikely friendship on the U.S. Supreme Court, Scalia/Ginsburg. The opera is so enlightening and entertaining, The Los Angeles Times boldly printed: “Could we please make it a constitutional requirement that no one can be sworn into the office in the White House or Congress without first having seen Scalia/Ginsburg.”
Partnering is a warhorse by the wittiest operatic writers of all time, Gilbert and Sullivan. Trial By Jury, their parody on the British judicial system, has everything that makes a G & S brilliant: dundering leads, intelligent half-wits, and a bevy of perky choirsters, all wrapped in the razor sharp wit of a good British farce.
The comedic evening plays at 7:30 p.m. April 17 and 2 p.m. April 19 at the Valentine Theatre. The student evening performance is at 7 p.m. April 15.
Complementing the regular season of events, Opera on Wheels will still be up and rolling, visiting area schools to give children a firsthand experience with opera. Next year’s tour features an abbreviated version of an Engelbert Humperdinck classic, Hänsel and Gretel vs. the Witch.
All performances will be held at the Valentine Theatre, 400 North Superior St. Season tickets start at $98 and are available from the Toledo Opera box office, 419-255-7464, or toledoopera.org.