There is something in Kenneithia Mitchell's voice that goes straight to the heart. Her singing is mellow, effortless, brilliantly phrased; she disappears in the role, serves the music and drama, no ego showing or heard in the voice. She is a true artist, not a star-wannabe. http://tinyurl.com/p79hph The soprano's debut at West Bay Opera this weekend, in the title role of "Madama Butterfly," was the precious jewel in the crown of a small company that keeps coming up with big hits on an annual budget that wouldn't cover half of a single production elsewhere. On the postage-size stage of the Lucie Stern Theater, with an orchestra of two dozen or less, Jose Luis Moscovich's Palo Alto company has given us first-class productions of "The Flying Dutchman" (!), "Cav/Pag," "Macbeth," "Manon Lescaut," and many more; to my regret, I missed "Orfeo ed Euridice" earlier this year. Somehow this "Butterfly," a transparent opera almost too well known, has topped them all with a comprehensively, consistently solid production from conductor Sara Jobin, stage director David F. Ostwald, set designer Peter Crompton, costume designer Callie Floor, a uniformly good cast, an orchestra playing its collective heart out, and an unusually fine chorus. Mathew Edwardsen is the Pinkerton, using a smallish voice to its best advantage. Kindra Scharich, the Suzuki, is going the other way, keeping a big voice down sufficiently, and giving a wonderfully committed dramatic performance. David Cox's Sharpless is among the finest musical-dramatic portrayals I have seen in the role. David Heilman's Goro and Carlos Aguilar's Bonze fit right into a great ensemble. As with Mitchell's performance (notwithstanding occasional slack diction, a bit of acidity in the voice between middle and high notes), the entire production had more than the sum of its parts, gifting the audience with that undefinable atmosphere of something being done right, pulling the listener into the glorious pathos of the work, bypassing distractions from one's critical faculty. (One exception: the men's wigs; tsk, tsk.) Jobin is responsible for the musical "rightness" of the performance. Still at the beginning of her career - although being the first (and so far only) woman conductor in the San Francisco Opera House - she has engagements galore coming up, including an unannounced/unconfirmed/rumored appearance at mentor Donald Runnicles' Deutsche Oper Berlin. Just as Runnicles' "Butterfly" in San Francisco a few years back, Jobin's Puccini is straightforward (that is, not gushing), but passionate and sweeping... never out of control. And, take note, unlike the SFO Orchestra, Jobin's small band consists of heroic part-timers of the Freeway Philharmonic, so the comparison is all the more impressive. Concertmaster Tina Anderson, cellists Janet Witharm and Dahna Rudin, Peter Lemberg on oboe/English horn, clarinetists Bruce Foster Macy have earned special mention. Ostwald's work should be used in opera-director schools as a shining example of serving an opera, instead of showing off how clever and "contemporary" the director can be. West Bay's is a traditional, but imaginative and compelling production, fluent and believable. Even the final scene, with an unusually large number of characters mourning Cio-Cio-San, seems "authentic." Thank goodness that none of Ostwald's program notes (about the collective guilt of conquerors, from the Egyptians to contemporary Sudan) were realized in the production itself; Bellasco and Puccini don't need amplification in anti-imperialism. Crompton's "traditional but relevant" set and Floor's opulent costumes would do credit to a bigger, more affluent opera house. I am not overemphasizing the business end of the story in view of Moscovich's own entertaining and effective pre-curtain plea for support. He had (true story) requested a $7 million grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the country's small opera companies, and he tells the story repeating the rationale he used in the application: "In lean times, people cut back on frivolous expenses. But opera is anything but that. It isn't just entertainment. You come to West Bay Opera to be moved, uplifted, healed. How much is that worth to you?" Appealing for support is easy. WBO and this "Butterfly" *earn* the right to support. Janos Gereben www.sfcv.org [log in to unmask] *********************************************** The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html