O18 Festival: Opera Philadelphia presents Anthony Roth Constanzo’s ‘Glass Handel’

Those parts include a video installation featuring contributions from boldface names including James Ivory and Tilda Swinton, and the creation of a live painting by celebrated visual artist George Condo. Recent Tony Award-winner Justin Peck choreographs an arresting dance for three soloists, including American Ballet Theatre principal David Hallberg and former Miami City Ballet prima donna Patricia Delgado. All the while, Costanzo performs alternating arias by Philip Glass and George Frideric Handel, under the baton of Opera Philadelphia music director Corrado Rovaris.

Hold on tight

Each segment takes place in a discrete area of Annenberg Court, with audience members wheeled in their seats from one section to the next by a gaggle of sturdy supernumeraries. Those with motion sickness should pack their Dramamine, or request one of the few stationary positions available in the rear of the space.

The peripatetic staging certainly lends the piece an air of whimsy but makes for an oddly divergent viewing experience. I saw very little of the mixed-media section — although the part I did witness, which featured Costanzo frolicking through a bucolic pasture clad in armor, may have been enough. I would have preferred to spend more time watching Condo work, but by the time my very able steward deposited me in front of his lightbox canvas, he had all but completed his task.

A recital?

For better or worse, I spent much of the performance with Costanzo, who performs on a raised platform in the center of the space. Save for Costanzo’s innate theatricality — borne out especially by his intricate costumes, designed by Raf Simons for Calvin Klein — it largely had the vibe of a standard-issue recital by a confident, practiced performer.

Costanzo’s vocal glory lies in his upper extension, which has an eerie, otherworldly tone and a generous ability to float soft high notes. This serves him especially well in the evening’s most familiar selection: the lovely, mournful “Lascia ch’io pianga,” from Handel’s Rinaldo, the long legato phrases of which emerge like spun gold. Frankly, it also adds a sense of character to the Glass contributions, which feature austerely self-aware music and laughable lyrics.

The silent MVP

What Costanzo doesn’t possess is a particularly interesting vocal instrument. His sound turns harsh and reedy in the middle register; a lower range is largely nonexistent. That lack of consistency occasionally turns the hour of uninterrupted listening into a banal chore. The problem seems most apparent in Handel’s “Vivi tiranno” — Costanzo slays the aria’s daunting coloratura but sounds unsupported in its lower-lying passages.

Rovaris conducts Handel’s music with authority, making excellent use of a reduced orchestra that includes many period-sensitive players. He further manages to add a welcome amount of color and variety to Glass’s often frustratingly open-ended sound world. For that alone, he emerges as the evening’s silent MVP.

Many will come away from Glass Handel entirely pleased. (The program repeats once more locally on September 30, then travels to New York’s Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in November). I left feeling as though the piece teeters too precariously between scholarship and self-indulgence.