Don Giovanni and West Side Story play 2 venues

By Burt Saidel

This review will cover two great shows, a musical and an opera.  Most interesting is deciding which one is which.

Dayton Opera mounted a stunning production of Mozart’s great Don Giovanni.  At the same time, Wright State Theatre recreated Leonard Bernstein’s blockbuster, West Side Story.  Each could be called a perfect musical; each is, in every aspect, an opera.

Don Giovanni recounts the tale of the great lover, Don Juan.  The story attracted many authors and composers but Mozart and his librettist da Ponte certainly have done it best.  The fanciful story is not an allegory.  It is a tale of an unashamed seducer and roué told by a pair of unashamed seducers and roués.  And, how well they understood their subject.

The Don hops from woman to woman innocently, yes I said innocently.  Women respond to his charismatic appeal, he can’t help that.  He goes to hell in the end, but does he really?  He still bed-hops on stages across the world for over two centuries and there will be no end in sight for his charming libido-filled persona.

Bernstein, on the other hand, took his inspiration from the star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet.  While Shakespeare had the language, his lovers did not have Bernstein’s timeless musical perfection to help tell their story.  

Unless perfectly played, Shakespeare’s pair can come off as spoiled, rebellious brats.  Bernstein’s lovers, Maria and Tony, are caught in a true tragic maelstrom of ethnic division, prejudice, poverty and hopelessness.  All set to music and dance inspiring actors and audiences since it propelled itself into our senses in 1957.
In both productions, the brightness of youth and the energy of true creativity made great moments in musical theater.  Dayton Opera’s Impresario Tom Bankston performed his usual magic in assembling a cast and company to give freshness and élan to Mozart’s great opera.

The production, directed with true comedic appeal by Benjamin Spierman, was played on a whimsical unit set which supported the multiple scenes well.  Steven Crawford, in his conducting debut, controlled the Philharmonic players sensitively but often with slow tempi reducing the “Mozart sparkle.”  Jeff Powell’s chorus had little singing but much acting adding excitement to the scenes.

The cast was peerless.  As the Don, handsome and dashing Timothy Kuhn displayed a big voice and powerful stage presence.  As his frustrated servant, Leporello, bass-baritone Kenneth Shaw was perfect.  In his tenth role with Dayton Opera, his sense of great comedy and vocal strength made the wily servant the center of the action.
The ladies of the cast made the most of Mozart’s great music.  As the vulnerable Donna Elvira, Layana Chianakas would have stopped the show many times if the continuum of the music had not swept the action along.  

Dayton’s emerging opera star, Laura Portune, made her naïve but willing bride, Zerlina, into an absolute darling.  Peppy and yet susceptible to the charms of the noble man, she sang like an angel.

She and Timothy shared one of the most quoted musical passages in history, the seduction duet, Là ci darem la mano.  As she lay, breathless on the stage floor, no one could blame her for falling under the Don’s spell or the Don for selecting this delightful morsel.

Adrienne Danrich and Scott Ramsay shared the frustrations of being the Don’s toys with vocal and dramatic elegance.  Poor Masetto, his new bride stolen from him by the Don at their wedding, was given a zany and totally sympathetic reading by Brian Shircliffe.

In Don Giovanni, all of the characters get what they really want.  They want to seduce and want to be seduced.  Buoyed by Mozart’s musical genius, it is this innocence that makes the opera so appealing.  

WSU’s West Side Story

In West Side Story, there is impending tragedy of the most real proportion.  The characters are all caught in the web and are devoured by the desperation of their lives.  This could justify making Don Giovanni a musical comedy and West Side Story a tragic opera Wright State Theatre called upon their superstars to create its fabulous production of West Side Story.  Director Joe Deer, choreographer Teresa McWilliams and set designer Don David have proved their special genius time and again.  They understand great musical theater and, most important, understand the power of youthful effervescence in telling the story.

One of the most creative and kinetic stage sets propelled the action in fast-changing scene after scene.  The first moments of the play demand inspired dance.  In dance along with Bernstein’s perfect music, the entire plot and characters are introduced. By the time the first song is sung, we know the tensions under which the characters live, we know, and even understand their desperation and hope in the face of hopelessness. All this is done with music and dance.  The songs, absolute gems, flow from that introduction to make a relentless and demanding tragedy live.

Each moment, every scene, is supported by musical perfection.  Bernstein’s classical works are often criticized, fairly, as unfocused and contrived.  The music of West Side Story is perfect.

The WSU cast, beautiful and energetic, was led by handsome Eric Boyd and beautiful Heidi Giberson as Tony and Maria.  As Bernardo, Muse Machine star Matt Kopec radiated.  His girlfriend, Anita, was played with sparkle and zest by Amber Preston. The important role of Riff required a last minute substitution when Zachary Boone broke his ankle.  His replacement, David Bauer, took the good wish “break a leg” seriously and gave a stellar performance.

I remember my first West Side Story and its stunning effect. After half a century of hearing the music, experiencing it as a totality again was a great gift, almost a history lesson.  This real tragedy is true theater.  This production is also, true theater.

Both Don Giovanni and West Side Story are still playing as you read this.  Dayton Opera will perform Friday and Sunday November 2 and 4.  WSU will play through Nov. 11.  Attend both and let me know which is the opera and which the musical!

Pianist 3rd in Vanguard series

Pianist Chu-Fang Huang will perform the third concert in the Vanguard Concerts series on Saturday, Nov. 3 at 8 p.m. in the Dayton Art Institute’s NCR Renaissance Auditorium.

Ms. Huang began studying the piano at the age of seven and received a full scholarship to the Shenyang Music Conservatory’s pre-college division at the age of 12. She made her U.S. recital debut at the age of 15 in the La Jolla Music Society’s Prodigy Series. Wherever she appears she is praised for her clarity, poise, and dead-on technique.

For her program in Dayton, Chu-Fang Huang will perform:

Fantasy in C major, Op. 15, Robert Schumann
La Valse , Maurice Ravel
Sonata in B minor, Hob. 16/32, Franz Joseph Haydn
Sonata No. 7 in B flat major, Op. 83, Sergei Prokofiev

Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for students and may be purchased at Hauer Music Company, Wright State University Center Box Office, and online at www.daytonartinstitute.org. Tickets may be purchased at the Dayton Art Institute on the night of the concert only.  For further information, please call Vanguard Concerts at (937) 436-0244.

Rhythm in Shoes ‘Radio Days’ gala Nov. 3

Rhythm in Shoes, an American music and dance company at home in Dayton, celebrates its 3rd Annual Shuffle Ball “fun-raiser” with “Radio Days,” an old-time “live” radio show – music, dance and theater for the ear!  The musicians and dancers of Rhythm in Shoes will transport patrons back to the 1930s and 1940s, when radio shows were live,  not-to-be-missed entertainment for the entire family. Shows of the era featured music, comedy and even dance – tap dancing, of course, the better to be heard!

“Radio Days,” from 7 to 11 p.m. on Nov. 3, at America’s Packard Museum, 420 South Ludlow Street, will include food donated by nine of Dayton’s best local restaurants and cafes, two performances by Rhythm in Shoes and dancing between sets to the music of Dave Greer’s Classic Jazz Stompers.  Tickets are $100 for individuals, $250 for Patrons and $500 for Grand Patrons.

MVSO opens season with two concerts

The Miami Valley Symphony Orchestra will present its inaugural pair of concerts of the 2007-08 season on Saturday evening, Nov. 3, and Sunday afternoon, Nov. 4.

The Saturday, Nov. 3 concert will take place at 8 p.m. at Epiphany Lutheran Church, 6450 Far Hills Ave. in Centerville; The Sunday, Nov. 4 concert will be held at 3 p.m. at the Shiloh Church in Harrison Twp. on North Main Street at Philadelphia Drive.
Dr. Kenneth Kohlenberg will be guest conductor for these concerts.

Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and $5 for students and are available at the door.

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October 30, 2007
Volume 16, No. 44

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