Opera Philadelphia presents Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims

The opera was composed 200 years ago to celebrate the coronation of the French King Charles X. The plot revolves around a group of aristocrats traveling to Reims Cathedral for the coronation. However, plans are deferred as the travelers are stranded at a hotel due to the unavailability of horses. Numerous scrapes and antics ensue, but eventually, the diverse array of guests arrive together at their destination. What is different about this production is the setting. Director Damiano Micheletto, making his American opera house debut in this production, resets the drama to a contemporary art gallery about to launch a major exhibition. And here is where the tableaux and “living pictures” enter in.

Art comes to life

As paintings and sculpture enter the stage, they are accompanied by—and sometimes turn into—living representations of the artists’ subjects, either in groups or as individual portraits. The tableaux created in this opera are truly remarkable, but not unique to our time. As readers of novels in English know, the creation of tableaux was a very popular form of entertainment in the late 18th and throughout the 19th centuries. You’ll find that tableaux as parlor games feature as plot devices in novels by Charlotte Bronte, Henry James, Wharton, and many others. Here, they add wit, surprise, and delight as visual elements.

We in the audience can show off our knowledge of art as these characters enter from off-stage (“Look, Harry, there’s the unshaven guy in a white dress by Fernando Botero!”). Individual portraits by Van Gogh, Kahlo, Haring, and others complement Rossini’s dazzling array of hummable tunes, conducted in a lively and assertive style by music director Corrado Rovaris. What a rich sound, competing a bit against all the other sensory stimulations of this production.

Enveloping sound

While the tableaux are clearly the “different” part of the company’s unofficial slogan, front and center is the music, the fine singing, and enveloping sound for which this company is known. There are more than a dozen soloists in this opera, all well-articulated and cheerfully embodied. Soprano Brenda Rae is sensational as the gallery owner, a Devil Wears Prada-type manager who inspires fear and dread among her employees. Rae wields a commanding voice as a tool of domination over her staff, but a vehicle for enjoyment for her listeners. Did I mention she can trot up and down stairs in three-inch stilettos while singing opera? Costume designer Carla Teti also wins praise for her fashionable contributions to this Wintour-esque character, and to the opera as a whole.

Lindsey Reynolds’s soprano voice is powerful and well-modulated in her role as La Contessa di Folleville, sustained through several long, difficult numbers in Act I. Tenor Alasdair Kent brings a bold, energetic presence to his role as Il Conte di Libenskof, reveling in some intricate vocal challenges. Especially amusing, yet poignant, is bass Scott Conner’s representation as Lord Sidney. In this production he has the role of the art restorer who falls in love with John Singer Sargent’s Madame X (he never does figure out what to do about that right shoulder strap). Conner blends sonorous declarations of love with convincing stage presence to create a compelling and charismatic personality.

Probably the loveliest vignette was the unpacking of Canova’s Three Graces, nude marble statues who slowly unfold into life and dance across the stage in a ballet of miraculous transcendence. Off-stage is a harp duet with soprano Emilie Kealani, offered with tenderness and deep feeling. (Kealani, who has the role of Corinna, a Roman poetess, played Cunegonde in Candide with Curtis Opera Theatre last season).

A sprawling finale

Criticisms of this production are minor but worth noting. Though light-hearted, this performance feels long. There are too many characters and pauses in the score and libretto that seem to indicate time for a break but then keep going. Similarly, the visual focal point keeps shifting, and I was exhausted as my eyes darted stage right, supertitles above, stage left, and various points on the stage. Yet who would dare to remove one of these gifted vocalists or cut one of those living artworks from the production? The performance concludes as the cast creates a sprawling, stage-wide tableau of François Gérard’s famous painting of the coronation. I was left with a feeling of awe and gratitude for what “opera, but different” is, and has the potential to become.