Annapolis Opera

As summer plans are being made, remember that the arts in Anne Arundel County do not go on hiatus as the temperature climbs.Opera buffs have much to look forward to. On Sunday at 4 p.m., the Annapolis Opera is offering a "Mother's Day in Paris" program of French music and food at Quiet Waters Park. Soprano Carla Del Villagio, mezzo Mary Anne Stewart, tenor Steve Cramer and pianist Adam Mahonskie will present selections from "Carmen," "Tales of Hoffman," "Faust" and other French operas.On June 18 at 4 p.m., the Annapolis Opera returns to present songs from "The Beggar's Opera" at the Paca House, 186 Prince George St. in Annapolis.

Puccini's La Boheme is the perfect opera in an era of short attention spans. The action, condensed into four short acts, moves swiftly from hunger to satiation, from innocence to painful reality; the characters develop at similar speed from strangers to lovers, from lovers to ex-lovers to renewed lovers. The marvel of the opera is that it's all perfectly credible - in an effective production, that is. To open its 29th season, the Annapolis Opera offered such a production over the weekend at the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts.

Annapolis Opera's The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflote) conjured up some unanticipated magic when its Papageno - Peter Couchman - was sidelined by a vocal cord injury and his friend, baritone David Adam Moore, who recently sang the role at the New York City Opera, was called upon. Moore came from New York to Annapolis to sing Papageno while Couchman spoke the English dialogue and acted the role. Together the pair saved the production, with Moore lending his magnificent baritone to Couchman's inspired lip-synched, onstage performance to produce their own unique stage magic.

Quibble with this or that, but when all is said and done, opera is about glorious singing. When the voices are there, you can live with all the other stuff that might go wrong.By this standard, the Annapolis Opera's recent production of Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" was a rousing success. Wherever you turned, you heard talented young singers doing wonderful things with Mozart's exquisite melodies and characters.In Thomas Zielinski, the production had a top-notch Figaro whose tonal depth gave opera's most celebrated valet the guts to tell off his aristocratic employer with stylish conviction in "Se vuol ballare," but whose agility made the tough coloratura passages in Act IV's "Tutto e disposto" dance with expertly controlled energy.

If Rigoletto didn't have bad luck, he wouldn't have any luck at all. This hunchbacked court jester gets tricked into helping his enemies kidnap his precious daughter, who gets turned over to the biggest lecher in town. Despite being essentially raped by that guy, the daughter falls for him and manages to foil her father's plans for revenge, taking the knife intended for the lech and leaving Rigoletto without kin or hope. Naturally, something that sad would have to make a great opera. So great, in fact, that even a ragged performance of Verdi's "Rigoletto" can be quite effective.

Last month, Annapolis Opera's board of directors completed plans for its 2003-2004 season and elected a new president to implement them. In the more robust 2000-2001, season the company began staging two operas, a policy that continued through this spring. But financial realities have led Annapolis Opera to revert to its earlier policy of producing only one fully staged opera each season and to introduce new fund-raising events. Dennis Monk, a former professor of musicology, got involved with the opera shortly after retiring to Annapolis nearly three years ago. Serving as president might not be the "retirement of sailing and golf" he envisioned, Monk said, "I am mightily flattered by the faith shown in me by the board."

"I like an aria to fit a singer as perfectly as a well-tailored suit of clothes," Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote in 1778.By the time he ascended the podium at Vienna's Burgtheater eight years later to conduct the premiere of his new opera "Le Nozze di Figaro," Mozart had designed a full line of musical apparel that still has the world buzzing over the sumptuousness of its workmanship.Indeed, "The Marriage of Figaro," which will be performed by the Annapolis Opera at 8 p.m. tomorrow and 3 p.m. Sunday at Maryland Hall, represents a great composer at the apex of his craft.

Annapolis Opera's 2000-2001 season will feature performances of "Rigoletto" and "Cosi Fan Tutte," along with a December holiday concert and two fund-raisers, company President Anna Marie Darlington-Gilmour has announced. Darlington-Gilmour said the company has received a $3,000 award for excellence in opera from the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation of San Francisco. The money will be used to provide English supertitles for "Rigoletto" in November. Subscriptions for the coming season "are going fast," with both "Pasta, Puccini and Verdi Dinner Concert" and "Mozart by Candlelight" half sold-out, Darlington-Gilmour said.

After judges narrowed a field of 61 vocalists to nine last weekend, the Annapolis Opera announced the finalists who will compete in Sunday's 17th annual vocal competition. Two are from Maryland, three are from Virginia and four are from Pennsylvania, with all nine possessing a strong educational background. The finalists are baritone Jason Kaminski and soprano Jung-A Lee, both of Maryland; soprano Leanne Gonzalez, baritone Nemeh Azzam, and soprano Lori Lind, all of Virginia; and baritone James Kee, bass-baritone Damian Savarino, soprano Brenda Atzinger, and tenor Jinho Hwang, all of Pennsylvania.

Annapolis Opera conductor and artistic director Ronald J. Gretz and his cast of singers are in the final week of rehearsal of Verdi's La Traviata. The second fully staged opera of this 30th anniversary season is to be presented March 21 and 23 at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts. Often described as the world's most popular opera because of its compelling love story and its relatively small cast and orchestra size requirements, La Traviata is also the most contemporary Verdi opera. Having premiered six years after the death at age 22 of Marie Duplessis, the woman that Alexandre Dumas loved and described in his La Dame Aux Camelias, Verdi's opera was criticized when it opened in Venice in 1853 for being too modern.