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All-American L'Elisir Charms at S.F. Conservatory

Steven Winn on April 7, 2015
Evan Kardon and chorus in L'elisir d'amore

On an all-American set brimming with hay bales and milk cans, sun-dried laundry and a barn-silhouette that doubled as the supertitle screen, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music set out to reclaim Donizetti’s deliciously contrived opera buffa L’elisir d’amore as a home-grown romantic comedy. It felt like the right move for the school’s annual Conservatory Opera Theatre spring production. Here, in a fully staged production and a full orchestra, were students artists making opera their own.

The transposition to 1950s America, in director Jose Maria Condemi’s staging, was suitably bucolic and buoyant and intrinsically persuasive. The peddler of the story’s phony love elixir becomes a native prototype: the traveling salesman con man taking the gullible townsfolk for all they’re worth, even as true love improbably flourishes. Donizetti and librettist Felice Romani might well have approved, then gone off to a square dance to celebrate. The peddler of the story’s phony love elixir becomes a native prototype: the traveling salesman con man.

This Elixir was slow to warm up on Thursday night, with some rickety singing and acting in the early going. But by the time the young voices had opened up and the broad-beamed approach to the opera had taken hold, charm flowed as freely as the ingratiating arias and ensembles of the composer’s 1832 score.

The primary musical pleasures of the evening belonged, as they should, to the two lovers at the center of the tale. In a performance that ran from haughty, independent-minded farm girl to a needy and slightly neurotic bride-to-be, soprano Evan Kardon made her adroit, bel canto singing as Adina a highlight. While Kardon may still need work on her comic timing and nuances, her bright sound and technical polish impressed throughout.

It was tenor Mario Rojas, as her bumpkin suitor Nemorino, who captured the audience’s hearts. While never quite transcending his own stiff-backed performance as a shy farm boy, Rojas’ warm and ingratiating voice prevailed. By the time he brought down the house with Nemorino’s wrenchingly plaintive “Una furtive lagrima” in the second act, Rojas had everyone rooting for him. Soprano Evan Kardon made her adroit, bel canto singing as Adina a highlight … Tenor Mario Rojas, as her bumpkin suitor Nemorino, captured the audience’s hearts.

The two leads had some lovely moments together, none better than the sweetly flirtatious duet they sang, back to back, on the grassy apron runway that ran in front of the orchestra pit. Later, when Adina finally and affectingly confessed her love after spurning Nemorino all night, Rojas literally hopped for joy and sprinted in place. It may have been the single most winning and authentically funny bit of stage business all night.

Toting his rucksack of dubious potions and a string of patter songs, bass-baritone Sergey Khalikulov made his first, visually witty entrance as a rogue airplane pilot descending on the town. The singer ran through his repertoire of scams and rapid singing with decisive gestures and vocal clarity. But his voice lacked heft and character.

Baritone Daniel Cameron, in the other major role, displayed similar assets and liabilities. Preening and popping his bomber jacket collar, he played the caddish Sgt. Belcore with a bold, if somewhat simplistically drawn line. His voice seemed to zone in and out and lacked the supple muscularity this self-regarding seducer requires.

Scott Sandmeier led a lively and sensitive performance by the orchestra, with some notably choice turns by trumpeter Alan Matteri.  While balance was occasionally a problem, particularly with the weaker singers, the pit-skirting runway was used to good advantage at various times.

Condemi’s direction was resourceful and inventive. He made full use of the theater, staging various exits and entrances through the Hume Concert Hall and composing some pleasing Grant Wood-like stage pictures. Only with the chorus, which gets a good bit of stage time, did the direction overreach. There was too much mugging and pointing and pointless trooping around on the creaky stage deck.

Written relatively early in his career, L’elisir was a precocious hit for Donizetti, its appeal undimmed nearly two centuries later. Like the American flag worked into the painted fields of Steven Kemp’s cunningly designed set, this production proudly waved the Conservatory’s many colors. The stars and stripes, even through some rough weather, flew clearly in sight.