SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Aspen Music Festival (2): Cavani Quartet, four-hand piano with Joseph Kalichstein, Yefim Bronfman, Emmanuel Ax and Misha Dichter; Rossini's  "La Cenerentola." 11.7.2008 (HS)


The Cavani Quartet, which got its start as Aspen Music Festival students in 1984, made a triumphant return of its own Wednesday in Harris Hall, playing its first concert here as professionals. The quartet tackled a demanding program of Dvorak, Janacek and Schumann with plenty of gusto.

Despite the occasional ragged pizzicato, these four women understand the music. The Dvorak "American" Quartet conveyed a sense of discovery as Dvorak built the quartet from music he heard in Iowa and New York.  Bartok's String Quartet No. 2 had an acidulated beauty and the Schumann Piano Quintet in E flat (with faculty pianist Ann Schein), lacked nothing in enthusiasm and rhythmic vitality.

Cellist Merry Peckham must be one of the most demonstrative classical musicians you're likely to see. You can read the music on her face and the way she moves around her cello before you hear it, and she plays with the same sense of drama and clarity. Kirsten Docter's full-throated viola playing anchored the middle range solidly, and violinists Annie Fullard and Mari Sato carried the top with most of their attention to vivid phrasing.

The highlight of the Thursday evening piano-palooza in the Tent, honoring Joseph Kalichstein for his 40 years with the festival, was a rip-roaring two-piano duet with Yefim Bronfman of Stravinksy's "The Rite of Spring." What it lacked in instrumental color it made up for with pounding rhythms. Duets with Emmanuel Ax and Misha Dichter were less successful, and the second half devolved into a comedy act, opening with  two-piano four-hand version of the "William Tell" overture.

Such arrangements have one thing in common, Kalichstein noted, "none of them is necessary." He introduced a bizarre arrangement of music from Bizet's "Carmen" by admitting that it was so bad one could only enjoy its (unintentional) humor. My favorite moment came when the page turners picked up tabourines to play along at one point. The audience got into the spirit and gave the enthusiastic banging a standing ovation anyway.

The one compelling reason to see "La Cenerentola," the Aspen Opera Theater Center's first offering of the summer, is the mezzo-soprano singing the title role. Julie Boulianne is the real deal. Performing with a cast that barely managed to get through Rossini's challenging music for this bel canto masterpiece in Tuesday's opening night, she sailed through her moments, big and small, and created a character sweet and innocent enough to justify the subtitle Rossini and his librettist, Jacopo Ferretti, appended to this very Italian version of the Cinderella story: "Or Goodness Triumphant."

Boulianne has the presence to command the stage without histrionics, often by standing there with a sweet smile. She opens her mouth and the sound comes out unforced, almost gentle, yet agile enough to negotiate with ease one of the most difficult coloratura arias ever written, "Nacqui all'affano" in the final act. In interacting with the other singers, she is a model of generous attention and consistently conjures up a feeling of reality.

Only a first-year student at Juilliard, the French Canadian has already sung starring roles at l'Opera Montréal—Rosina in Rossini's "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" and Annio in Mozart's "La Clemenza di Tito." Aspen is fortunate to be hearing her at this stage of her career, much as audiences may remember fondly hearing the likes of Renée Fleming and Susanne Mentzer when they sang here before becoming stars.

The production, directed by Edward Berkeley, re-sets the story from fairy-tale times to 1950s America. Angelina, known as Cenerentola, lives with her blowhard stepfather, Don Magnifico, and two overprivileged stepsisters in a trailer park. The bride-seeking prince, Don Ramiro, seems to be a trust fund baby living in a Long Island country club, instead of a castle. Although the singers still go on about castles and he's still called a prince, this does little damage to the storytelling, although it doesn't add much either.

As Dandini, the valet who impersonates the prince so he can determine what the prospective brides are really like, baritone José Adán Pérez was the best of the male side of the cast, singing easily and demonstrating good comic timing. Likewise the stepsisters, soprano Angelina Mortellaro and mezzo Heather Jewson, created two truly funny characters and sang them decently. But Fabian Robles as Ramiro sounded pinched and forced the higher he sang, Paul An as Alidoro made little impression, and the less said about Eui Jin Kim's Don Magnifico the better.

Conductor Bruno Cinquegrani got competent playing from the mostly student orchestra, but the sparkly ensembles often threatened to derail. The one that ends Act I landed with a thud. Thanks to Boulianne, however, not only did goodness triumph but so did the evening.

Harvey Steiman


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