Central City.(North America)(Jongleur de Notre Dame)(Contes d'Hoffmann)(Opera Review)

Central City's delightful historic theater housed two French works this summer: July 24 afforded visitors both Massenet's 1904 Jongleur de Notre Dame, which left repertory currency with Mary Garden (who commandeered the tenor lead for herself), and the more familiar Contes d'Hoffmann. Both productions were enjoyable. The level of sung French diction was quite good (certainly as high above the normal American opera average as Central City is in elevation above most opera houses). The solo chairs (notably violin, cello and winds) played expertly, while concerted violin passages sometimes slipped in intonation--perhaps also due to elevation? But standards are high under musical administrator John Baril, who also led a taut but romantic Hoffmann. The chorus, drawn from fresh-voiced apprentice and studio singers, provided consistent pleasure and good articulation.

The masterfully-constructed Jongleur, if no match for Manon or Werther in terms of melodic inspiration, merited revival and proved a moving experience. Ken Cazan's skillfully blocked staging intriguingly (if questionably) transposed the action from the fourteenth century to an unsettled post-World War I France: soldiers hassled the Prieur, and a chorus woman brazenly spat in his face, showing a resistance to monastic centrality that the action of Maurice Lena's libretto would seem to contradict. (Jongleurs plot has structural similarities to a Kundry-and Klingsor-free Parsifal.) Conductor J. David Jackson provided firm architectural support, minimizing sentimentality but finding the score's beauties. The textual commitment and energy of Jon Garrison's Jean were praiseworthy; no teenager in aspect, he uncannily resembled a grizzled George W. Bush, producing a mature "character sound" with little of the head resonance and precise attack Jean's part seems to invite. Gaetan Laperriere's noble aspect and drily Gallic baritone suited the Prieur to perfection, and Eduardo Chama, a shade approximate as to diction and pitch but superbly rich in voice and humanity, carried the day as the empathetic cook Boniface (Massenet's girl to the stagewise Lucien Fugere).

The company's Artists Training program, which has nurtured Denyce Graves and Emily Pulley among many others, furnished several capable young voices in both works; particularly promising, for cultivated, sonorous vocalism and good stage presence, were baritone Daniel Cilli (Moine-Peintre, Hermann) and bass-baritone Michael Scarcelle ...