SF Opera's Il Trovatore

* Notes * 
Il Trovatore, the first opera at San Francisco Opera this season opened last night with lots of varied and beautiful playing from the orchestra. There was strong singing from the chorus and from the principals.

Maestra Eun Sun Kim continues to impress, her tempi hold my attention. The tradeoff is that there are moments when the free quality of the rubato causes a certain fuzziness. The orchestra does sound very full and fiery but it is always very easy to hear each individual line of the music.

This is a revival of David McVicar's elegant production (Act II Scene 1 pictured, photograph by Cory Weaver) but directed here by Roy Rallo. It works well and the huge rotating set from Charles Edwards is surprisingly quiet.

The chorus is robust, "Vedi le fosche notturne" in Act II was rousing. The beginning of Act III showcased these singers well too. I found bass Robert Pomakov (Ferrando) creaky at first, but his voice opened up over the course of the evening. Baritone George Petean had a strong San Francisco Opera debut as Count di Luna. His voice has a pleasant roundness and his "Il balen del suo sorriso...Per me ora fatale" in Act II was lovely. Mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk sounded weirdly ethereal as Azucena, it was not an interpretation I had considered before. Her voice doesn't have a lot of earthiness to it, but is very pretty and can be creepy.

Tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz makes for a handsome Manrico and though he hits all the notes, his timbre has a hollow quality. He seemed almost to be shrieking "Deserto sulla terra" offstage in Act I. I also could not hear him at the end of Act II Scene 1 at all, even though he and Semenchuk were all the way downstage and the mezzo was not overpowering him. He did sound better in the second half of the opera. On the other hand, soprano Angel Blue (pictured in Act IV, photograph by Cory Weaver) has a resonant sound from top to bottom. She conveys the text very clearly, and I felt all the emotions that poor Leonora experienced. Her Act IV "D'amor sull'ali rosee" was particularly moving.

* Tattling * 
The audience on the orchestra level was well-behaved, there was very little talking around us, and only when there was no music happening. I did hear a cellular phone at the beginning of Act IV when Leonora is brought before the dungeon keep.

I tried to keep my inappropriate giggling to a minimum, but this opera's plot is so convoluted and incomprehensible that I did feel some mirth bubbling up at times.