For its third production this season, Gioachino Rossini's "Moses in Egypt" (1818), the itinerant New York City Opera returned to New York City Center, where it was born as "the people's opera" in 1944 and spent the first two decades of its life. The opera world has undergone major changes since then, and City Opera, still battling back from a near-death experience four years ago, continues to search for a distinctive contemporary identity, one that will attract sufficient audiences and donors to sustain it.
"Moses in Egypt" is an intriguing step towards that goal: The staging, directed and designed by Michael Counts, is groundbreaking, using video created by Ada Whitney of Beehive and an absolute minimum of physical scenery. Ms. Whitney's remarkable images—a field of stars, a slowly scrolling desert panorama, a cave mouth that is at first in front of the singers and then behind them as they seem to move deeper inside—could solve the problem of cumbersome sets once and for all. Perhaps City Opera will become the country's first virtual opera company. Imagine how much the Metropolitan Opera could have saved on its gigantic Ring Cycle if it had forgone the Robert Lepage "machine" and done it all with video.
A grand opera with a big cast and full chorus, "Moses in Egypt" is a good candidate for video treatment. Based on the Book of Exodus, with an interfaith love story added to spice things up, it depicts three of the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea—all of which can be headaches for a producer.
It is also a showcase for dueling bass-baritones, Mosè and Faraone (Moses and Pharaoh). Faraone keeps promising to let the Israelites go, and reneging; each time he does so, Mosè calls in another plague. Faraone's son Osiride wants to keep the Israelites around and continue his clandestine love affair with the Israelite Elcia, so he urges Faraone to break his promise and ends up a casualty of the last plague, the Slaying of the First-Born.
The City Opera cast is made up almost entirely of debut artists, with some nice finds among them. David Salsbery Fry replaces the original Mosè, who was ill. Without the necessary vocal weight and gravity, it is hard to see Mr. Fry as much of a threat to the Faraone of Wayne Tigges, a powerful presence despite a tendency to sing sharp. But the tenor and soprano pairs (one in each camp) are happier matches. As Osiride, Randall Bills works hard and acquits himself with distinction but little finesse in this high, difficult role. Aldo Caputo has effortless volume as Aronne (Aaron). Siân Davies uses her pure, agile soprano and sculpted phrasing to bring some pathos to Elcia. Keri Alkema, the only returning singer in the cast (she was an impressive Donna Elvira in the company's "Don Giovanni" in 2009) brings a burnished intensity and clean coloratura to Amaltea, Faraone's wife and an Israelite sympathizer. Potent in smaller roles are Zachary Finkelstein as the scheming Egyptian priest Mambre and Emily Righter as the Israelite Amenofi.
Jessica Jahn has dressed the Egyptians in sculptural black-and-gold hats and breastplates for the royals, and the Israelites in flowing pastel-hued robes. Mosè, in a white dress, looks more like a benign Bible-story Jesus than an Old Testament patriarch. Ryan O'Gara's lighting mostly works well with the video.
Mr. Counts and the conductor, Jayce Ogren (now also the company's music director), could certainly do more with this good material. Channeling Robert Wilson or Achim Freyer, Mr. Counts and choreographer Ken Roht set up tableaux and some slow gestures (rigid vs. fluid, with Faraone apparently signaling traffic and Elcia drawing serpentine arcs) and otherwise leave the characters to stand and sing. The acting is minimal and amateurish. When Osiride takes Elcia into the cave to persuade her to run off with him, the two never generate any mutual intensity; all the visual interest comes from the video projection. As Mr. Lepage did with the Ring Cycle, Mr. Counts fatally relies on the wow factor of technology and forgets about the people.
Mr. Ogren's pedestrian conducting tends here to plod rather than soar. The orchestra is adequate, with some hints of inspiration in the woodwind solos. This is too bad, because the piece is rarely performed (this was billed as its first full staging in New York in more than 180 years) and is well worth hearing, with spectacular ensemble and chorus pieces and a vigorous story that all lend themselves to more interpretation than they received here.
City Center, which is now beautifully renovated with a clear but cold acoustic, seems a comfortable setting for its prodigal child. But expectations are higher than they were six decades ago and life is a lot more expensive. City Opera has more work to do.
"Moses in Egypt" is an intriguing step towards that goal: The staging, directed and designed by Michael Counts, is groundbreaking, using video created by Ada Whitney of Beehive and an absolute minimum of physical scenery. Ms. Whitney's remarkable images—a field of stars, a slowly scrolling desert panorama, a cave mouth that is at first in front of the singers and then behind them as they seem to move deeper inside—could solve the problem of cumbersome sets once and for all. Perhaps City Opera will become the country's first virtual opera company. Imagine how much the Metropolitan Opera could have saved on its gigantic Ring Cycle if it had forgone the Robert Lepage "machine" and done it all with video.
A grand opera with a big cast and full chorus, "Moses in Egypt" is a good candidate for video treatment. Based on the Book of Exodus, with an interfaith love story added to spice things up, it depicts three of the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea—all of which can be headaches for a producer.
It is also a showcase for dueling bass-baritones, Mosè and Faraone (Moses and Pharaoh). Faraone keeps promising to let the Israelites go, and reneging; each time he does so, Mosè calls in another plague. Faraone's son Osiride wants to keep the Israelites around and continue his clandestine love affair with the Israelite Elcia, so he urges Faraone to break his promise and ends up a casualty of the last plague, the Slaying of the First-Born.
The City Opera cast is made up almost entirely of debut artists, with some nice finds among them. David Salsbery Fry replaces the original Mosè, who was ill. Without the necessary vocal weight and gravity, it is hard to see Mr. Fry as much of a threat to the Faraone of Wayne Tigges, a powerful presence despite a tendency to sing sharp. But the tenor and soprano pairs (one in each camp) are happier matches. As Osiride, Randall Bills works hard and acquits himself with distinction but little finesse in this high, difficult role. Aldo Caputo has effortless volume as Aronne (Aaron). Siân Davies uses her pure, agile soprano and sculpted phrasing to bring some pathos to Elcia. Keri Alkema, the only returning singer in the cast (she was an impressive Donna Elvira in the company's "Don Giovanni" in 2009) brings a burnished intensity and clean coloratura to Amaltea, Faraone's wife and an Israelite sympathizer. Potent in smaller roles are Zachary Finkelstein as the scheming Egyptian priest Mambre and Emily Righter as the Israelite Amenofi.
Jessica Jahn has dressed the Egyptians in sculptural black-and-gold hats and breastplates for the royals, and the Israelites in flowing pastel-hued robes. Mosè, in a white dress, looks more like a benign Bible-story Jesus than an Old Testament patriarch. Ryan O'Gara's lighting mostly works well with the video.
Mr. Counts and the conductor, Jayce Ogren (now also the company's music director), could certainly do more with this good material. Channeling Robert Wilson or Achim Freyer, Mr. Counts and choreographer Ken Roht set up tableaux and some slow gestures (rigid vs. fluid, with Faraone apparently signaling traffic and Elcia drawing serpentine arcs) and otherwise leave the characters to stand and sing. The acting is minimal and amateurish. When Osiride takes Elcia into the cave to persuade her to run off with him, the two never generate any mutual intensity; all the visual interest comes from the video projection. As Mr. Lepage did with the Ring Cycle, Mr. Counts fatally relies on the wow factor of technology and forgets about the people.
Mr. Ogren's pedestrian conducting tends here to plod rather than soar. The orchestra is adequate, with some hints of inspiration in the woodwind solos. This is too bad, because the piece is rarely performed (this was billed as its first full staging in New York in more than 180 years) and is well worth hearing, with spectacular ensemble and chorus pieces and a vigorous story that all lend themselves to more interpretation than they received here.
City Center, which is now beautifully renovated with a clear but cold acoustic, seems a comfortable setting for its prodigal child. But expectations are higher than they were six decades ago and life is a lot more expensive. City Opera has more work to do.
