Verdi's opera, "La Traviata" and the Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick musical "She Loves Me" opened last week at the Utah Festival Opera Company in Logan. And the comparisons and contrasts are striking. The productions show the large-small, old-new, tragic-comic side of romantic love.
- LA TRAVIATA: To say grand opera goes "over the top" in its quest for great truths and grand passion is stating the obvious. What you hope is the production is engaging enough to keep you from seeing theatricality instead of good theater.And this production makes it work. Using inventiveness in its staging (pillars on a patio doubling as pillars in dance halls and bedrooms) and by putting its money literally where its mouth is - into wonderful voices - this version of "La Traviata" keeps the audience on board from soprano Jennifer Casey Cabot's opening "waking dream" until she drifts off to eternal sleep.
As with so many Italian operas, the female lead steals the heart of the audience here and the tenor (Michael Philip Davis, acting and singing with drama and vigor) steals the heart of the diva. But where the bass often muddles about in a heart of darkness, Grant Youngblood steals the show.
As the confused father Germont, he's riveting - drawing the longest and warmest applause of the night.
The chorus work is superb, as is Henry Holt's conducting. Nicholas Cavallaro's lights cast a burnished, 19th century glow on the sets and singers.
- SHE LOVES ME: In contrast, the musical "She Loves Me" is a Hallmark card with real poetry in it. Lighthearted and cheeky, the show has a winking self-awareness that is both coy and a little cloying, which may explain why this musical has remained at quarterdeck. It constantly undermines its own narrative.
If the show is to succeed at all, in fact, it must succeed on charm. And you will never find more charming leads than Michael Ballam (as the perfume shop manager, Georg) and Suzan Hanson (as his employee and anonymous pen-pal, Amalia).
In this girl-gets-boy melodrama, the characters have a Disneyesque bliss about them. And director Francis J. Cullinan seems to trade on it. James Miller is the oily Steven Kodaly. Joy Hermalyn is a dynamo as the "bestest friend" of the female lead, and Brannon Hall-Garcia has the delivery and demeanor of a 1950s sitcom boss.
What's more, set designer William Forrester has created a veritable Fantasyland out of perfume bottles.
In short, the show is full of memorable melody, lines and lessons on life. This is the spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down. It is - I say with winking self-awareness - a delightful Hallmark card from the UFOC to Utah.