Chicago Opera Theater is continuing its foreshortened 2015-16 season with an unlikely but effective pairing of two one-act operas, one a genuine rarity — Francis Poulenc’s tragic monodrama “La Voix Humaine” — the other, Giacomo Puccini’s enduring comic masterpiece “Gianni Schicchi,” which pops up on occasion, but more often in student productions.
Neither work has been professionally staged in Chicago for some years. COT last mounted “Schicchi” in 2000, and Lyric Opera’s most recent production dates to 1996, when it shared the stage with the two other panels of the Puccini triptych, “Il Tabarro” and “Suor Angelica.” “La Voix Humaine” (“The Human Voice”) goes back even further, to a 1982 Lyric double bill (with Leoncavallo’s “I Pagliacci”) that starred British soprano Josephine Barstow.
The stagings by COT general director Andreas Mitisek (who also created the set and costume designs) made no attempt to link the two works thematically, which is just as well since they have little to nothing in common. Mitisek did, however, update “Schicchi” to the swinging 1960s, with all the funky fashions thereof, thereby bringing its rambunctious action closer in time to Poulenc’s 1959 musical portrait of a woman engaged in a final phone conversation with her former lover.
What makes the pairing unmissable is Patricia Racette’s deeply poignant performance as the unhappy heroine of Poulenc’s setting of the eponymous Jean Cocteau play. Casting the celebrated American soprano in the role of Elle (She) was a policy departure for the ensemble-oriented COT, but it paid off at the first performance Saturday night at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance (the show repeats next weekend).
Elle is a study in emotional neediness, as the woman fights to get a grip in the course of a desperate, 40-minute phone conversation with the man who has left her for another mistress. The telephone line is her only remaining means of contact with a man she still loves, despite his lies and cheating. Her voice is all we hear of their conversation as she accepts blame for the breakup.
Racette was taking on the role of Elle for the first time in her career, and this smart singing actress was mesmerizing from first to last, drawing us into her character’s increasing distress without ever overplaying or underplaying the interior drama. Garbed in blood-red, pouring drinks, puffing cigarettes, Elle wrapped the phone cord around herself like an umbilical. She put up a brave front as her life unraveled around her.
Poulenc’s lyrical, parlando writing lies well within Racette’s vocal comfort zone, and she colored the words with supple phrasing, velvety tone and excellent French diction. She received fluid, sympathetic orchestral cushioning from a good ensemble under conductor Ari Pelto. Elle’s flat looked out on a gray backdrop whose Mies-like skyscrapers evoked Chicago more than they did Paris, with a huge, surreal moon slowly making its way across the cityscape.
I was less taken by the co-billed “Gianni Schicchi,” although the audience clearly found the show’s hijinks and tomfoolery good for chuckles and even a few belly laughs. And there was always Puccini’s treasurable score to help paper over spots in the action that came off as more frantic than funny.
The greedy relatives of Buoso Donati, the recently deceased Florentine landowner who has disinherited them, cavorted in Haight-Ashbury hippie togs against spinning psychedelic projections like something out of TV’s “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.” None of the Donati clan were given much comedic individuality, save for Barbara Landis’ deliciously nasty Zita. There was a great deal of the usual mugging and dashing about the stage. The updated, non-Florentine setting did not add nor did it take away anything from the piece — it was just there to divert the eye.
Schicchi, the clever rogue who outwits the relatives and grabs most of the inheritance for himself and his daughter Lauretta, was dressed like Austin Powers, complete with shades and smoking jacket. The character was strongly sung and winningly played by baritone Michael Chioldi.
The other standout, vocally speaking, was soprano Emily Birsan, a Lyric Ryan Opera Center alumna, who chirped the opera’s greatest hit, Lauretta’s aria “O mio babbino caro” (“Oh, hear me, dearest daddy,” in the awkward translation employed here) very prettily. Christopher Tiesi, as Lauretta’s lover Rinuccio, appeared to have been cast more for his good looks than for his tenor, which was tight. Former COT Young Artist Matthan Ring Black showed admirable vocal promise as Spinelloccio and Guccio.
Once again the orchestra sounded well-prepared and supported the singers well, although one has heard lusher, more crisply animated Puccini playing from other pit groups. Sean Cawelti created the fluid video designs, David Lee Bradke the busy lighting.
3 stars
Chicago Opera Theater’s double bill of Poulenc’s “La Voix Humaine” and Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi” repeats at 3 p.m. Feb. 14 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St.; $35-$125; 312-704-8414, www.chicagooperatheater.org
John von Rhein is a Tribune critic.
Twitter @jvonrhein
