Have you seen La favorita lately? If you live in the Bay Area, the answer is probably no. Even in the best of times, Donizetti's 1840 melodrama has never ranked among the composer's greatest hits, and these days, with opera companies forced to bank on box office certainties, new productions are woefully few and far between.
Leave it to the enterprising Donald Pippin and his Pocket Opera to keep this, and dozens of other operas, in rotation. Pippin, who began presenting concerts in North Beach in the 1950s, founded Pocket Opera in 1977; he's now leading the company in its third decade of staging English-language chamber productions. Sunday afternoon in the Florence Gould Theater at the Palace of the Legion of Honor, he unveiled a new production of La favorita as the second offering of Pocket's 2009 season.
Pippin takes a rather unconventional approach. Most of his productions are in English (though Pocket will present one production, Handel's Alcina, in its original Italian this season). Most use his own libretti, of which he's published four volumes; at Sunday's performance, a table in the lobby was doing a brisk business selling his English versions of operas by Mozart, Puccini, Offenbach, and Donizetti.
All productions are done on a shoestring, with minimal design elements and an eight-piece chamber group (the Pocket Philharmonic) led by Pippin at the piano onstage. Needless to say, there are limitations, so audiences expecting lavish productions, large-scale orchestral sound, or top singers may be disappointed. Yet, with Pippin and company, the spirit is always willing, and for aficionados who can't afford to fly to Europe to hear a work like La favorita onstage, Pocket Opera may be just the ticket. (Europe may be the only other place you can hear this opera this decade, for San Francisco Opera last produced Donizetti's score in its original French version, La Favorite, in 1999, and hasn't done the Italian version since 1973.)
Sunday's 2½-hour performance, which repeats April 4 at the Legion of Honor and April 5 at the Julia Morgan Center in Berkeley, didn't mine the opera for every nuance, though this may be a plus in the overcooked Royer-Vaëz-Scribe libretto about a 14th-century Catholic novice torn between religious duty and his love for a mysterious woman who, unfortunately, turns out to be the mistress of the Spanish king.
Yet Pippin and stage director Andrew Morgan have fashioned a stripped-down, straightforward staging that works surprisingly well. For opera lovers who never get enough of Donizetti's music, there was a great deal of pleasure in this Favorita.
Pippin's Patter Tells All
Donald Pippin's English libretto puts to rest the question of whether the opera is better in French or Italian. His version clarifies the action, and in case there are any lingering doubts, he leaves the piano and comes downstage at key intervals, giving a brief, often wry synopsis of the double-dealings and “grubby truth” still to be revealed in the scenes to come. In addition to fleshing out the romantic story between the characters of Fernando and Leonora, Pippin's comments remind us that the destruction wrought by the competing forces of religion and politics make the opera both timeless and contemporary.
Heading the cast was Rachel Michelberg, who introduced a Leonora of poise and considerable vocal reserves. The mezzo-soprano phrased attractively and, despite a couple of unfocused leaps to the top of the staff, produced urgent, attractive tone. Her singing in the great aria “O mon Fernand” was one of the afternoon's most arresting episodes.
Brian Thorsett was her Fernando. The tenor's bright, ringing tone and smooth legato were decided assets throughout the performance, and “Ange si pur” was ardently sung. Thorsett has an uncomfortable tendency to lose definition when he pushes for volume, though, for the most part, he sang handsomely.
Lee Strawn, despite an oddly benign characterization, was an eloquent King Alfonso. Richard Mix has the requisite low bass notes for the role of Abbott Balthazar, but produced wooly, unstable sound at the top of his range. Director Morgan himself contributed an unctuous Don Gasparo, and Erina Newkirk was a silvery Ines.
The chorus' men (Cal Dominigue, Justin Marsh, and Wayne Wong) and women (Melody Caspari, Elana Cowen, and Daniella Risman) sounded blurry in a few spots, but blended well in the big ensembles.
Throughout, the Pocket Philharmonic played with verve and sensitivity. There were moments — unavoidable, in a group this size — when Donizetti's score emerged sounding awfully thin. Elsewhere, the opera's wealth of smoldering color, and its austere, solemn framework, came across beautifully. Pippin clearly understands the need for elasticity, and breathing room for the singers, and this came across too.