Making virtues of limitations is a West Bay Opera specialty, a skill set that much larger organizations have also had to embrace in recent years. In such circumstances, Vincenzo Bellini’s La sonnambula (The sleepwalker) is a perfect opera, one that showed the company off to best advantage in a performance at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto on Saturday, Feb. 21.
La sonnambula is modest in everything except, of course, the demands Bellini’s music makes on the three lead singers, who at the 1831 premiere included two of Italy’s biggest names (Giuditta Pasta and Giovanni Battista Rubini). If you don’t know the plot, it’s a conventional love triangle set in a Swiss village. The protagonist Amina sleepwalks into the bedroom of the local count, who’s staying at the village inn. Complications ensue, and the climax is reached when the villagers and Amina’s fiancé, Elvino, watch her sleepwalk across a bridge over the mill race.
Soprano Michelle Allie Drever, in her role debut as Amina, has the coloratura goods, save for a more natural trill. She’s a good musician who bound melodic ornamentation into the longer line without rushing or gliding over many individual notes. Her voice has presence, and she showed evenness throughout her range, a huge asset in this role. That alone would be enough to star in this production, but Drever also sang the opera’s big number, “Ah! non credea mirarti” (I hadn’t thought I’d see you), with immense feeling. She indicated too much, particularly with her facial expressions, but considering this is a show built around old-style pantomime, that was hardly a serious flaw.
Her Elvino, tenor Chris Mosz, was making his WBO debut, having recently wowed audiences as Tonio in Livermore Valley Opera’s The Daughter of the Regiment. He is also well equipped to handle this tough role. Mosz’s voice is large, if a little nasal in quality, but he handled the runs and ornamentation in his part delicately. He mixed his head and chest voice in the highest notes, almost a necessity in this repertoire, allowing him to preserve the longer line and come down from the heights gracefully. He was an energetic lover who matched well with Drever: They seemed to have chemistry.
The redoubtable Shawnette Sulker took the role of Lisa, Amina’s rival. Sulker is an excellent actor and conveyed the role’s mix of comedy and seriousness. While her topmost notes were shrill, everything else about her singing was superior.
In the smaller roles, West Bay debutante Courtney Miller, playing Amina’s adoptive mother, was excellent, both in singing and acting, and Casey Germain, as Count Rodolfo, was stiff but likeable. He sings steadily and evenly and has quite a nice voice. Michael Orlinsky, as the disappointed Alessio, was funny and perfectly adequate for his role.
The chorus, directed by Bruce Olstad, hung together and demonstrated particularly great diction; you could hear every word. José Luis Moscovich conducted a tight performance, and the orchestra, not overwhelmed by the score’s demands, breathed with the singers and lent them strong support. As always, the production elements by the WBO team (set and projection designer Peter Crompton, costume designer Callie Floor, and lighting designer Danielle Ferguson) were well thought-out for the space. This was a fine show and well worth the drive from Berkeley.
