Two Operas about Women

Conductor:  Ryan Murray (new opera theater director)
Stage Director:  Gia Battista
Piano:  Renee Harris

California State University Sacramento performed two operas last night. 

Game of Chance by Seymour Barab

First knitter:  Taylor Graham
Second knitter:  Katie Thorpe
Third knitter:  Valerie Loera
The representative:  Justin Ramm-Damron

This is the second time for this opera at Sac State.  So what is the attraction?  Three women are knitting their lives away and wish for something else.  The attraction is that each of them gets a nice solo scene.  A man comes to take them away to their dream.  At the end they are discontented and wish they had asked for more.  As a person who became a systems analyst in her 40s, this seems absurd.  Why settle?  There's not a lot that can be done with this opera.

fichu

Amelia Goes to the Ball by Gian-Carlo Menotti

Amelia:  Angela Yam
The Friend:  Valerie Loera
The Husband:  Michael Carey
The Lover:  Aaron Gallington
The Chief of Police:  Justin Ramm-Damron
First Maid:  Taylor Graham
Second Maid:  Monica Serrano

This is fun.  There is nothing in this opera that is actually about a ball.  It's all about getting there.  At the start the maids are helping Amelia dress while her friend urges her to hurry.  I have included the above so that all may see what a fichu looks like.  Amelia searches for hers without success, thus causing the delay.

Before she finds it husband arrives home.  He accuses her of having a lover, which she admits on the condition that he will take her to the ball.  He lives upstairs.  Husband goes looking and lover enters.  The Lover was played very much for laughs.  Aaron Gallington was an amusing physical comic with lots of odd looking gestures.  The opera ends with husband knocked out and taken to the hospital, lover accused of theft and taken off by the police, and finally with Amelia going off to the ball with the Chief of Police.  We have to assume that all is well.

This opera is a vehicle for the woman who sings Amelia, in our case Angela Yam who was impressive.

3 Domestic Operas

This is the new guy at the Sacramento State opera theater:  Omari Tau.  This weekend he put on Triptych, An Evening of One-Act Operas, consisting of Samuel Barber's A Hand of Bridge, Mark Bucci's Sweet Betsy From Pike and Seymour Barab's A Game of Chance. 

Two performances of A Hand of Bridge one week apart.  How likely is that?  The libretto is by Gian Carlo Menotti who seems not to have actually played bridge.  The bidding stops at 5 hearts--clearly Sally's suit.  She should be declarer and not dummy.  She complains about always being dummy, possibly a form of spousal abuse.  At the end of the hand the play goes "2 of hearts," "seven of hearts," "trump."  But hearts IS trump.  You can't trump trumps.  Oh well.  Each player day dreams about something else, clearly the point of the opera.

David - Kyle Sullivan
Geraldine - Rachelle Lang
Bill - Michael Beale
Sally - Chloe Angst


Sweet Betsy from Pike is based on the famous song.  Betsy (Rachel Sprague) is shot and Ike goes off with the narrator (Vanessa Martucci).

A Game of Chance has an unusual plot.  Three women are sitting on a park bench knitting.  One by one they get up and complain about their lives.  The first woman (Knitter 3 sung by Linda Herring) wishes she were rich.  The Representative enters on a scooter carrying a very large check for writing a slogan which the three women sing.  These two exit.  The second woman (Knitter 2 sung by Kathy Cusson) wishes she were famous.  For her The Representative enters on a bicycle with a contract to publish her manuscript.  They exit.  The third woman (Knitter 1 sung by Rachelle Lang) wishes for love, and this time The Representative enters on a motor cycle.  She is to be reunited with an old lover.. The opera ends with an ensemble in which all four characters complain about their fates:  I didn't ask for enough.  It would be a far better opera if the final section was more extended.  I liked the staging very much.

Kyle Sullivan was the star of the show.  He played David, Ike and The Representative.  He may have been chosen because he could carry Betsy.

These operas are making me understand why the big opera composers, people like Adams and Glass, prefer serious political subjects for their operas. American domestic life is not the most fascinating theme for an opera.

It is important to note that this production also used computer projections.