Winter Opera uncorks a sparkling "Merry Widow"

Kathy Pyeatt and the ensemble

This review originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

As the first catalogs of Christmas made their way to our recycle bin last, Winter Opera opened an early Christmas present for opera lovers last weekend (October 28 and 30, 2016) with a production of Franz Lehár's durable 1905 comic operetta The Merry Widow. As bubbly as champagne and as bright as a Christmas tree, this charming and entertaining show was one of the company's best.

Holly Janz and Jack Swanson

If you've never seen it either on stage or in one of its many film incarnations, know that the story of The Merry Widow revolves around Hanna, a youngish widow from the fictional Balkan nation of Pontevedro, who became a millionaire when her much older husband died on their wedding night. Living the high life in Paris, she's actively courted by young men with their eyes on the twenty million franc prize, but she secretly yearns for her first love, Count Danilo, who was forbidden to marry her many years ago by his snobbish family.

Now a minor official in the Pontevedrian embassy trying to drown his torch for Hanna in champagne and grisettes at Maxim's, Danilo is ordered by the ambassador, Baron Zeta, to woo Hanna and marry her, thereby keeping her millions from leaving the country. But, of course, Danilo's pride won't let him say those "three little words" to Hanna.

You know where this is all going, right?

There's also a subplot concerning Zeta's young wife Valencienne and her brief fling with a young Frenchman, Camille de Rosillon, as well as a recurring gag about the obsession of the embassy attache, Njegus, with the girls at Maxims. Needless to say, all ends happily with a big party.

Kathy Pyeatt and Clark Sturdevant

First and foremost among this production's many virtues is the uniform strength of its cast. Winter Opera has been somewhat uneven in this regard in previous the past, but this time around everyone is simply perfect, beginning with soprano Kathy Pyeatt, who demonstrated how to “glitter and be gay” (or quote a song title from Candide) in the crucial role of Hanna. Her voice was liquid gold all the way to the top of its range, making the popular second act aria “Vilja” a thing of beauty. She's also a fine actress, always in character even when not in focus.

Tenor Clark Sturdevant was a perfect match for Ms. Pyeatt as Danilo. The role lies a bit low for most tenors and is not infrequently sung by a baritone with a solid head voice, but Mr. Sturdevant sounded entirely comfortable with it. He, too, had solid acting chops, which gave the scenes between him and Ms. Pyeatt a convincing reality.

Among the supporting cast, mezzo Holly Janz stood out as Valencienne. The role is written for a soprano but-as both her singing here and a quick glance at her biography demonstrated-Ms. Janz is comfortable with soprano roles as well. Tenor Jack Swanson was an excellent vocal match for her as Rosillon, and their scenes together had real charm.

Baritone Gary Moss was a comically clueless Baron Zeta. I'm not sure why he was the only Pontevedrian with a vaudeville "Balkan" accent, but he certainly made it work for him. Baritone Curtis Shoemake was also a delight as the excessively enthusiastic Njegus.

The chorus is important in Merry Widow, and Chorus Master Nancy Mayo can take pride in how well her forces did their jobs, singling clearly and with impressively precise elocution. It helped that the (uncredited) English translation sounded very natural, often making the English supertitles unnecessary.

Curtis Shoemake and grisettes

Director Dean Anthony clearly has a good eye for what works well on a stage. His blocking always made sense and his pacing was unfailingly right and his choreography did an excellent job of keeping the real dancers front and center in the second act party scene while providing easily executed steps for the non-dancing singers in big ensemble numbers. The minstrel show-style tambourine number for the male principals in "Girls, Girls, Girls" was also an inspired (and well executed) bit of comedy.

Scott Schoonover did his usually fine job conducing the orchestra in a generally very well played reading of Lehár's unforgettable score. There were a few bits of sloppy brass intonation at the very beginning when I saw the show on Sunday, but otherwise the band sounded quite good. I wosj Mr. Schoonover hadn't decided to cut the engaging overture, though.

Scott Loebl's sets were nothing short of beautiful, with a wonderful trompe e'loeil backdrop for the Pontevedrian embassy that looked positively three dimensional. JC Krajicek's lavish and colorful costumes added to the overall visual richness of this production.

Ultimately, the worst thing to be said about Winter Opera's Merry Widow is that there were only two performances of it. If Winter Opera is going to continue producing work of this quality, it really needs longer runs. For more information on the current season, including the annual Holidays on the Hill concerts on December 6 and 7, visit the company's web site.

"Oh misery me": The problems of "Yeomen of the Guard" are unsolved by Winter Opera

Contemporary Yeomen in period costume at the Tower of London

Gilbert and Sullivan operettas follow a fairly predictable format—so much so that Anna Russell once made it the basis for a sixteen-minute comedy routine on "How to Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan Opera." The one oddball in the G&S canon is "Yeomen of the Guard," a somewhat indifferent production of which opened Winter Opera's current season the weekend of October 30th.

"Yeomen" comes at a time in Gilbert and Sullivan's partnership when Sir Arthur Sullivan was beginning to see himself as a victim of his own success. Like his literary contemporary Arthur Conan Doyle, Sullivan felt that his popular works were overshadowing his more serious efforts. As Doyle would come to resent Sherlock Holmes, Sullivan was beginning to resent his comic collaborations with Gilbert. So when Gilbert proposed a more serious libretto, Sullivan jumped at the chance.

First performed in 1888, "Yeomen" wasn't a total departure from the familiar formula. There are disguises, complex plot reversals, and a fair amount of comedy. But the satirical jabs at British institutions are absent and the ending is, if not really tragic, at least unhappy. The result is an uneven mix of Gilbertian absurdity and unconvincing drama that never really works as either comedy or tragedy. Its appeal has always escaped me.

Set in the Tower of London in the 16th century, the story of "Yeomen" revolves around Colonel Fairfax, who is about to executed for sorcery on the basis of false testimony from an evil cousin who plans to inherit Fairfax's fortune if Fairfax dies unmarried. Fairfax offers 100 crowns to any woman who will marry him, sight unseen, and so cheat his cousin of his ill-gotten gains. Elsie Maynard, a young singer more or less betrothed to the jester Jack Point, takes him up on the offer in order to buy medicine for her ailing mother.

Unknown to Fairfax, his old friend Sergeant Meryll and daughter Phoebe have hatched a plot to save his life by disguising him as Meryll's son Leonard, newly arrived to take a position as one of the Tower guards (the "Yeomen" of the title). Once sprung from prison, Fairfax woos Phoebe and then, still disguised as Leonard, seduces Elsie while pretending to be helping Jack Point woo her.

By the end of the opera both Phoebe and her father are trapped in dreary marriages to (respectively) the loutish jailer Wilfred Shadbolt and the bloodthirsty Tower housekeeper Dame Carruthers as the price for keeping their plot secret. Fairfax claims Elsie and poor Jack Point falls senseless to the stage.

In short, no good deed goes unpunished and Fairfax, an ingrate if ever there was one, goes on his merry way.

The inadequacies of the libretto aside, Sullivan produced some wonderful music for "Yeomen," including an artfully constructed overture which was, alas, cut in half for this production. Most of the other optional cuts were apparently made as well, bringing the show in at under two and one-half hours, including intermission. Unfortunately, the slow pacing and static staging by director John Stephens made it feel longer.

As is often the case with Winter Opera, there were some truly fine voices in this cast, with mezzo Amy Maude Helfer leading the pack as a completely engaging Phoebe. She displayed a fluid, smooth voice and impressive acting skills. Soprano Eileen Vanessa Rodriguez was an excellent Elsie and bass James Harrington brought a welcome touch of dry humor to the role of Sergeant Meryll.

As Jack Point, baritone Andy Papas had the kind of rich, powerful voice that one doesn't often hear in the "principal actor" roles in Gilbert and Sullivan. He did well by Point's patter numbers, although he made the character a bit more querulous than I would have liked.

There were vocally strong performances as well from tenor Clark Sturdevant as Fairfax, contralto Sharmay Musacchio as a rather young-looking Dame Carruthers, and bass-baritone Adrian Rosas as the one historically based character, Tower Lieutenant Sir Richard Cholmondeley. Baritone Gary Moss sang well as Shadbolt and had some nice comic business, but insisted on delivering all his lines facing downstage, even when interacting with other characters, which simply looked bizarre.

The chorus was small but mighty; credit Chorus Master Nancy Mayo for that.

Scott Schoonover did his usual polished job conducting the orchestra, which generally did quite well by Sullivan's music, that annoying cut in the overture not withstanding. The fact that the Viragh Center has an actual orchestra pit also eliminated some of the balance problems you sometimes encounter in performance spaces that weren’t designed with musical theatre in mind.

Scott Loebl's set gave a nice sense of the Tower's imposing presence while still leaving lots of playing space available and JC Krajicek's costumes evoked the period quite effectively.

If "Yeomen of the Guard" was not, on the whole, one of Winter Opera's better efforts, the bulk of the blame must fall to Mr. Gilbert for producing a libretto that was neither fish nor fowl. "Yeomen of the Guard" is a problematic work, and this production didn't solve it.

Winter Opera's season continues with Mozart's "Cosi fan Tutte" January 22 and 24 and concludes with Verdi's "Il Trovatore" March 4 and 6. There's also a festive "Holidays on the Hill" concert December 8 and 9 and Dominic's on the Hill. For more information: winteroperastl.org.

This review originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.