Winter Opera St. Louis staged L’Italiana in Algeri this past weekend. Not so well known as some other Rossini operas, it nevertheless proved to be mostly quite delightful despite the plot’s distasteful number “Viva, viva, il flagel delle donne”, or, more or less, “Hooray for striking the women”.
The bey of Algiers, Mustafa (Alec Soare) is bored with his wife, Elvira (Holly Flack), and decides he needs a new spouse. (Rossini apparently wasn’t aware of multiple wives in Islam, we assume.) He’s the fellow who says he “knows how to treat women”. The bey, among his other activities, runs a fleet of what we’d now call Barbary pirates, regularly bringing in captives whom he uses as slaves. The fresh crop includes a beautiful woman, Isabella (Kate Tombaugh), whom the bey immediately picks as the object of his affection. But one of his personal slaves, Lindoro (Gregory Schmidt) – who he’s planning on freeing and sending back to Italy, freed but married to his soon-to-be-ex-wife – turns out to be the beloved of Isabella.
It’s complicated, of course. No surprise there. Elvira loves her husband and doesn’t want to leave him, and Isabella is burdened with an aging admirer, Taddeo (Nicholas Ward), captured with her and who convinces the bey he’s Isabella’s uncle.
The bey’s personal habits in dealing with women are brought to heel by Isabella, who with fine deliberation outsmarts him from start to finish, and he’s straightened out quite satisfyingly.
Some very fine voices here, Tombaugh, Schmidt, and Soare in particular, working the zippy, tuneful score. Soare is wonderfully glowering as the bey. Ward proves to have quite a gift for comedy as the show moves on into the second act, including his dancing (shown above). Darwin Aquino conducted, and Eric Gibson stage directed. Scott Loebl did the scenic design, and Natali Arco the lighting. Special kudos to JC Krajicek for the fabulous costumes, a particularly notable job.
Winter Opera is now in its 12th season, and continues to mature. A delightful show overall. They're doing Norma the weekend of March 8th.
L’Italiana in Algeri
January 2019
Winter Opera St. Louis
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