Poor Richard's "Falstaff' at Fringe Festival

At last year's Philly Fringe festival, Poor Richard's Opera presented seven one-act operas in a seven-day marathon. This year the same company is presenting a modern dress cabaret version of Verdi's Falstaff, performed in a small space with piano accompaniment and minimal settings.

When I reviewed two of Poor Richard's operas last year, I warned readers that the operas were sung in English and they wouldn't understand most of the words. (Click here.)

Most of those seven operas featured critical and sometimes witty dialogue. Experienced opera enthusiasts could enjoy them merely by catching the general drift of the dialogue from the librettos printed in the programs. But the novices attracted by the listing in the Fringe schedule might have been sufficiently annoyed to swear off opera forever.

This year, Poor Richard's music director, Laurie Rogers, has created surtitles that translate Verdi's Italian dialogue into contemporary vernacular English. When Falstaff sits in the tavern mourning his first defeat by the Merry Wives of Windsor, the surtitles translate the opening of his aria as, "The world sucks." That may not be a literal translation, but it matches the music and the expression on baritone Jose Andrade's face.

Other titles include terms like "jerk." Two commonly used obscenities are presented with discreet dashes replacing some of the letters.

Fresh ideas for surtitles

Most opera companies squeeze surtitle translations into a small band over the stage. Rogers has opted for a large screen to the right of the performance area, and she has included images that establish the contemporary setting and present some of the dialogue as e-mails, tweets and Facebook pages.

Surtitles may have changed the way that audiences experience opera, but they're essentially a useful sidebar. Rogers promotes them to a supporting role that multiplies the fun inherent in Verdi's music and in the plotting and characterization that Verdi borrowed from Shakespeare.

Poor Richard's Opera showcases young pros with good voices and solid credits. Musically, the production includes sonic treats like the beautiful female harmonies in the fairy chorus in the last act. Fringers looking for an inexpensive, entertaining Night at the Opera won't be disappointed.

The singers are backed by equally capable support. Pianist Ting Ting Wong got the show off to a rollicking start and provided all the mood changes that the script requires. Stage director Siddhartha Misra used his limited space with flair and imagination and kept the proceedings moving at a clip that matched the pace of Rogers's conducting.

Tricky character

The Act II slapstick climax mated Verdi's energetic score with an inspired to-and-fro, as Dame Ford's angry husband led his friends in a frantic search for his wife's seducer, the two romantic leads huddled behind a screen, and the Fat Knight Falstaff hid from his pursuers.

Falstaff is a tricky character. The singer in the title role must balance roguishness with likeability. I've seen one performance in which Falstaff looked so old and incompetent that his misadventures seemed like a prime case of elder abuse rather than the mischievous comeuppance of a lovable scoundrel.

In this production Jose Andrade confronted the opposite problem: Andrade's singing and acting presented a suitable portrait, but he could have used some extra stuffing in his blue jogging suit. By contemporary standards, Andrade looked like a large healthy man, rather than a self-indulgent devotee of ale and roast beef.

This may have been the first time the leading man in an opera looked too thin.