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REVIEW: ‘La Boheme’ makes glorious Paramount debut for CR Opera Theatre

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CEDAR RAPIDS — “La Boheme” is the perfect event for the Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre’s debut at the Paramount Theatre.

Not only is it one of the world’s best-loved operas, but the renovated stage is the right size to showcase more than 100 voices on multilevel scenery and nearly 50 stellar Orchestra Iowa musicians in the expanded pit below.

I saw the Opera Theatre’s 2002 production of “La Boheme” at the 500-seat Theatre Cedar Rapids, and the trade-off is that with the 1,700-seat Paramount, you lose a measure of intimacy with the characters, but you gain a visual spectacle that makes for a fine evening’s entertainment.

It’s the story and haunting melodies that inspired Broadway’s smash hit “Rent,” both exploring the vibrant, troubling, tragic world of starving young artists trying to live out their passions amid a dire poverty that exacts the most harsh physical and emotional tolls. “La Boheme” is set in 1830s Paris, while “Rent” is set 150 years later in New York’s bohemian East Village.

Shouts of “bravo” rang through the Paramount on Friday’s opening night (1/18/13) as many of the 1,200 audience members rose to their feet in appreciation of the herculean efforts and talent it took to mount such a lavish production. It repeats at 2 p.m. Sunday (1/20/13). A few seats are available on the main floor and the back of the first balcony.

The details

The orchestra, under the expert artistic direction of Daniel Kleinknecht, is always wonderful, but is especially masterful interpreting Giacomo Puccini’s music that plumbs the depths and heights of human emotions. At times, however, the intensity of instrumental sound buried the solo and small ensemble vocals, especially when the singers were in their lower registers.

I fully understand the purist viewpoint of presenting the vocalists without amplification, but the trade-off in a large venue is that you’re bound to miss nuances, and that’s a shame. All of these singers are fine artists, but when one voice tries to rise above 50 instruments, sheer numbers are going to win at least part of the time.

The two most sonorous voices, however, rose mightily every time. Philip Torre and Meredith Hansen as former lovers Marcello and Musetta own every scene in which they spar. Their big voices and big personalities fill the stage with excitement and energy.

Seldom have I heard an instrument as resonant and powerful as Torre’s. He is simply a sound and sight to behold as the painter who has lost his flirty, vampish love, Musetta, to a wealthy old suitor, Alcindoro.

John Muriello from the University of Iowa voice faculty, a favorite with the Opera Theatre and its fans, is his always-delightful self in the comic character roles of the wealthy suitor in the second act and the artists’ demanding, drunken landlord in the first act.

The focus of the story is the ebbing and flowing relationship of seamstress Mimi and poet Rodolpho. Erica Strauss and Eric Barry are simply heartbreaking in their passion and pathos.

Special nods go to stage director Stanley M. Garner for guiding not only the small, quiet moments, but the cast of thousands. as well, in the second act’s swirling street scene full of lively antics, including a marching band from Jefferson High School and singers of all ages from the Corridor.

And every step of the way, all of the performers are enveloped in sublime scenery by Rob Sunderman, lively and moody lighting by Scott Olinger and the most detailed, magnificent costumes by Janie Westendorf.

Bravo, indeed.

Related: Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre staging a show for all seasons of love

Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre presents: La Boheme

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Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre will make its Paramount Theatre debut with "La Boheme" on Jan. 18 and 20. (Image/ Ron Sunderman)

 

Over the moon for “Rent”? You can see where it all began when the Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre makes its Paramount Theatre debut with “La Boheme” on Jan. 18 and 20.

Puccini’s best-loved opera opened in 1896 — exactly 100 years before “Rent” took Broadway by storm. One features a dying seamstress named Mimi, a poet, a painter, a singer, a musician, a philosopher, a state councilor and a landlord in the 1830s. The other features a dying dancer named Mimi, a songwriter, a filmmaker, a performance artist, a drag queen, a philosophy professor, a lawyer and a landlord in the 1980s.

The late Jonathan Larson based his modern tale of love, loss and angst on Puccini’s opera, moving the action from Paris to New York’s East Village. Both are rife with starving artists living and loving amidst poverty and illness. One scourge is AIDS, the other is tuberculosis.

Both focus on a year in the life — on seasons of undulating love under dire circumstances. And that’s why today’s audiences wrap “La Boheme” in such an enduring embrace.

“The secret is in number 1, the music, and number 2, the drama in the story,” says artistic director Stanley M. Garner of Tulsa, Okla., who is making his first trip to Iowa to work with the opera company.

But romance can’t always triumph over harsh realities, he adds. Both shows take place in and around freezing cold apartments where the most fragile characters simply can’t survive, no matter how many pieces of paper they burn for warmth. The end result is heartbreak — a death of body and a near-death of spirit in both.

“This is nothing new,” Garner says, “and it’s still around with us today. I was watching the local news last night, in Cedar Rapids, and they were doing a story about shelters and the homeless, because it was so very cold.”

Daniel Kleinknecht

That provides the bridge for opera fans and “Rent” fans.

“This couldn’t be a better first opera experience or 50th opera experience,” says Daniel Kleinknecht of Coralville, the opera theater’s founder and musical director for “La Boheme.”

The details

  • Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre presents “La Boheme”
  • 8 p.m. Jan. 18 and 2 p.m. Jan. 20
  • Paramount Theatre
  • Tickets: $18 to $53 at the Orchestra Iowa Box Office, (319) 366-8203, 1-(800) 369- 8863 or Paramounttheatrecr.com
  • Information: cr-opera.org
  • Extras: Free pre-opera Curtain Talks in Opus Cafe one hour before showtimes; Iowa Public Radio will broadcast the Jan. 20 production live

“Puccini knew how to assemble an evening’s entertainment,” he says. “The first act is rambunctious … then it becomes a little more quiet. The second act is so full of spirit and life with all of these wonderful activities. It’s Christmas Eve in Paris and ends with emotional high.

“The third act becomes so introverted and so contrasting to the second act — it’s wonderfully expressive and warm and full of pathos. It’s a discovery of unrequited love and real pain. Then Puccini continues to take us over this emotional cliff with (Mimi’s) really incapacitated health and her death,” says Kleinknecht, who also serves as an associate professor of music at Mount Mercy University.

“In essence, Puccini takes us on an emotional ride. He gives us incredible highs and incredible lows. These are all such human, human emotions and they’re set to the most gorgeous tunes. So we as human beings respond to that,” he says. “It’s a natural human response to love this piece, because Puccini was so human.”

Stanley M. Garner

Garner, a classical actor who has been directing operas since 1991, has spoken to young “Rent” fans after they experienced “La Boheme” for the first time. They love it, he says.

“It’s like almost a maturation. Now ‘Boheme’ becomes their favorite,” he says. “They are fascinated by the fact that … it’s acoustic. That there are no microphones, there’s no sound enhancement, there’s no electronic amplification of sound. … It’s pretty exciting and electrifying … if it’s the first time you’ve ever heard something like that.”

Kleinknecht can’t wait for it all to come together. The production, part of the opera theater’s 15th season, presents a number of firsts: first time in the Paramount; largest cast, numbering around 100; largest orchestra, filling the renovated pit with 50 Orchestra Iowa players; largest set, featuring a huge central piece that rotates from the attic apartment to the boisterous Latin Quarter cafe and other environs; and the opera theater’s largest potential audience, with two performances in the 1,700-seat auditorium.

He’s hoping to “open a new door” for people new to opera.

He’s already opening a new door for massive community involvement, using 30 children from Orchestra Iowa’s Discovery Chorus and the Crescendo Children’s Choir from Iowa City; 17 from the opera’s Young Artists program; an adult chorus of 30; and 12 players from the Jefferson High School band onstage — in addition to the principal core of six professional opera performers Kleinknecht auditioned in New York last June.

“We decided … let’s throw everything in but the kitchen sink,” Kleinknecht says.

All will find big challenges in Puccini’s score, which is sung in Italian.

“Every measure is in a different tempo,” he says. “People have to keep real close attention to not just the notes and the key signatures, but to the way it’s shaped and the way it’s sung.”

They also need to be on their toes, since Kleinknecht and the orchestra will be down in the pit, while the singers will be on two levels on the set.

“We’ll have like three stories’ difference between the orchestra and the singers. This will be really fun,” he says.

Erica Strauss

Despite the sadness of her role, soprano Erica Strauss of New York City is having fun with her first opportunity to portray Mimi. She’s loved the show for a long time, and says the aria “Mi Chiamano Mimì” is the second one she learned as a beginning voice student.

“It’s exciting to be able to finally get a chance to do it,” she says. “Besides the amazing music,” she’s drawn to Mimi’s “sweetness, her vulnerability. She has a very, very deep soul. I love that about her. I find her to be a very genuine person with a really, really good heart.”

It’s not easy playing someone who is ill, especially someone who is coughing, which is hard on the vocal chords, so Strauss protects herself by doing more of a pantomime cough.

Her main challenge, however, deals with the show’s emotional impact.

“It’s just so sad and the music hits you so close to your heart,” she says, so her hard task is “to separate you as a person from you as a character and not get overwhelmed by just how sad it is. …

“Honestly, it’s a pleasure to play her.”

 

Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre will make its Paramount Theatre debut with "La Boheme" on Jan. 18 and 20. (Image/ Ron Sunderman)

The art of chocolate

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By Diana Nollen/ SourceMedia Group

Sensual, silly and somber. All ways to describe chocolate confections, all ways to describe the Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre’s upcoming extravaganza, “The Art of Chocolate.”

Julia Child will bake a cake, Lynne Rossetto Kasper from public radio’s “The Splendid Table” will speak and a trio of Young Artists will sing of lost love March 31, 2012, in various venues at The Hotel at Kirkwood Center.

“I think it’s a great idea,” says Cedar Rapids native Karen Brunssen, 58, who now lives in the Chicago area and teaches voice and opera at Northwestern University. She will be channeling Child in the one-act comic opera, “Bon Appetit,” a role she’s performed with about 10 assorted opera companies.

“I love that it’s at the Kirkwood hotel facility and I’m going to be in a cooking studio. That’s probably the best place I’ll ever get to do this show,” she says. “The combination of the two shows — I think that’s just so clever.”

Rossetto Kasper also sings the praises of the lineup, in which half the audience will see Brunssen in “Bon Appetit” in a teaching kitchen while the other half sees the polar opposite opera, “Face on the Bar Room Floor,” in the lobby. The audience will then gather in a lecture room for a discussion and Q&A with Rossetto Kasper, then divide to see the other opera. Afterward, all will gather again for a champagne and chocolate reception featuring a book signing by “The Splendid Table” host. Books will be available for purchase that night.

The event is a bit of a departure for Rossetto Kasper, who will be on the road about 30 or 40 dates this year to promote her new book, “The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Weekends.” (see related story)

“I have been involved in plays,” she says by phone from her home in St. Paul, Minn. “We have a wonderful group here of 100 men — The Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus. I performed with them when they did a food-themed program. It was utterly hysterical.

“This is my first time being the entr’acte with an opera company.  I’m trying to decide, should I do one of my diva costumes or just quietly come out on stage,” says the kitchen queen, who describes her age as “between 58 and death.” “I’m so looking forward to this. It sounds like it’s going to be fun.”

“This is an unparalleled new experience for us,” says Daniel Kleinknecht, 51, of Coralville, the opera company’s founder and conductor. “I always like to do things that sort of blur the lines, a bit of this, a bit of that. The idea of ‘what is art,’ ‘what is chamber music’ is always interesting to me.

“We’ve put together an evening that’s just sort of pleasure — two one-act operas dealing with food and drink. The connection is that Lynne will talk about chocolate, then we’ll eat a little chocolate. So food and drink and music — it’s all there.

“It will be unexpected for the audience, because it’s not a traditional concert in any way.”

At $75, the ticket price is higher than usual and the audience capacity will be smaller, at 300, for the production which will cost between $20,000 and $25,000 to present. Both operas will be accompanied by piano.

The music, however, is of the high caliber Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre audiences have come to expect.

“They are fairly demanding,” Kleinknecht says. “Both are 20th century pieces. They have some rhythmic challenges, but the music is very gentle to the ear. The stories are engaging, the plots are wonderful and they’re very contrasting. One is very funny, the other more serious. Audiences are going to be very close to the performers, so they’re going to be very engaged with everything. There are no boundaries between the audience and the singers. They will all be very close to one another.”

They may even have to dodge some flying flour as mezzo-soprano Brunssen simultaneously sings and cooks.

“I’ll be making a chocolate cake,” she says, “and it’s not meticulous at all. It will be quite messy by the time I’m done.

“If anybody knows my personal cooking skills, that’s all the more fun, because they’re limited,” she says. “I have to crack eggs and I have to separate the yolks from the whites while I’m singing. In one show, I was almost thrown off when I cracked an egg and it had a double yolk. Your mind is going, I’m trying to crack and separate and sing. I got through the moment, but not without a bit of a heart flutter. There are all sorts of opportunities for things to be messed up.

“It’s a 20-minute workout,” says Brunssen, who became intrigued with performing during her Jefferson High School days. “You are singing pretty hard, and the multi-tasking — I will always make mistakes and I will always have to recover from them, and that’s fun.”

Describing herself as a tall, big-boned woman like Child, Brunssen recalls seeing Child’s cooking shows on TV when she was a little girl.

“I was too young to be a fan, but I appreciated it,” says Brunssen, daughter of Dean and Ann Gesme of Cedar Rapids.

That appreciation carries over to her portrayal.

“We all kind of laughed at Julia, but with a keen respect for the dignity she brings to the art of cooking,” Brunssen says. “She was the first of the whole ‘cooking-on-TV’ thing. There was something we enjoyed about watching her that was light-hearted. She did make messes. She was self-deprecating in a lovely sense.

“You want to find a balance between the awe we have for her but the vulnerability of cooking. She loved that.”

 

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