Review | Operatic Tears of a Fearsome Clown

Opera Santa Barbara, the treasured and resilient cultural institution, has long proven itself more than adept at delivering the goods on both tragic and comic ends of the opera repertoire spectrum. Rarely, though, has OSB successfully wrestled with a tragicomic and paradoxical beast on the order of Pagliacci, which opened OSB’s new season at the Lobero Theatre last week with great panache and, yes, gnashing torment.

In Leoncavallo’s 1890 tale of a fierce cuckolded clown, the circus element comes to town and to the stage in the giddy and gag-lined opening of Act II. All the gushing and clowning mirth of the scene, duly captured in stage director Octavio Cardenas’ fascinating staging, shifts abruptly into dark and murderous dynamics. Our spirit of comic glee is effectively wiped off our face as the gods of operatic tragedy descend to the bitter end.

But enough with the sly allusion to last week’s election night.

OSB, which does a stellar job of making opera a valid art form in our midst — by whatever means necessary — has triumphed once again. The company’s season-opener boasted an impressive ensemble of singer/actors — especially the robustly voiced Robert Stahley as the tortured clown whose show must go on and his unfaithful wife Nedda, the gymnastic passion juggler boldly realized by soprano Alaysha Fox. Her lovers and betrayers Silvio and Beppo were also assuredly embodied by Benjamin Brecher and Matthew Peterson, respectively.

(Pop culture trivia note: Canio’s famed Act I closing aria “Vesti la giubba” has been oft-repurposed in many pop/commercial contexts, including a Rice Krispies commercial I can’t now unhear: “no more Rice Krispies, we’re all out of Rice Krispies…”)

A flexible and supportive orchestral sound rose from the orchestra pit, crisply conducted by OSB’s multitasking leader Kostis Protopaspas, and kudos were deserved for the suitably vintage and flamboyant costumes (managed by Stacie Logue), the work of scenic and projection designer Daniel Chapman and lighting director Helena Kuukka.

But wait, there’s more: this production was distinguished by a clever and well-suited staging scheme, which airlifted the original opera’s 19th century comedia dell ‘arte setting to the realm of Italian cinema circa the mid-20th century neo-realism period. The first sound we heard in the Lobero was not Leoncavalo’s overture, but the rickety whir of a period projector, as the curtain opened on a ’50s -era Italian film set.

The natural fourth wall framing of the Opera, with its teasing narrator Tonio (Ben Lowe) explaining away the drama’s magic tricks, worked perfectly in cinematic garb. Studio lights and a bulbous vintage pickup truck set the stage alongside a mock vintage camera, occasionally used to film and project live footage of characters in action and in song. Further stage setting arrived as snippets of archival cinema flashed by — including Buster Keaton and Giulietta Masina from Fellini’s La Strada. The whiff of Fellini ambience offers a foreshadowing of the second act’s tragicomic abandon at the circus — as seen in the final scene of Fellini’s 8 1/2.

In the theatrical balance of the many elements in this entrancing OSB concoction lies a framework which both draws us into the characters’ angst and murderous impulses while distancing us from the grit and blood of the story. We can empathize with the opera’s emotionally wrought characters, while settling back into the detached observer mindset, with its handy mantra “it’s only an opera/movie.”

Touche, OSB.