Washington Classical Review

Nicholas McGegan led Opera Lafayette’s program Wednesday night at St. Francis Hall. Photo: Dario Acosta

Opera Lafayette is striking out in new directions. During the first season under its new music director, Patrick Dupre Quigley, the historical opera company left its accustomed home at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. For its second of three productions this season, Nicholas McGegan made his company debut conducting a duo program on the theme of love, perfectly timed for Valentine’s Day, and presented at a new venue, St. Francis Hall in Northeast.

Think of the evening as something like dinner theater, but with appetizing music. A few tables could be reserved towards the front of the hall, with rows of theater-like seating toward the back in the venue, which often hosts weddings and other special events. Chocolate treats and wine, the latter chosen by sommelier Sarah Thompson from the restaurant The Queen’s English, were on offer to sweeten the mood.

Soprano Maya Kherani and tenor James Reese sang the solo and duet selections, accompanied by a small instrumental ensemble in various combinations of two violins, cello, and theorbo, with McGegan at the harpsichord. The singers acted out the music in ways both touching and comic, moving from the small stage behind the musicians, to places in front of them, and even walking among the audience tables and throughout the room. Erica Ferguson directed these character movements to pleasing effect.

Kherani made an alluring Opera Lafayette debut, her light soprano filling but not overpowering the room. Her delicately articulated runs ornamented several pieces, including Purcell’s “If Music Be the Food of Love,” and she flirted charmingly with the audience in Pelham Humfrey’s “Oh that I had a fine man.” She brought a wide-eyed innocence to “Somebody,” an enigmatic miniature by Anonymous among the pieces copied by the novelist Jane Austen into her personal music book.

James Reese brought a sweet tenor voice and expressive musical phrasing to his solo pieces, in particular the lovely rarity “Le doux Silence” by the 17th-century composer Honoré d’Ambruis. Reese showed strong comic timing in some of the more humorous songs, including William Mountfort’s “Monsieur le Chien” and Purcell’s “The Knotting Song,” both expressions of male frustration with an uncooperative partner.

The two singers displayed credible chemistry together in their duets, especially comic ones like Monteverdi’s coy “Bel Pastor” and Henry Lawes’ suggestive “Dialogue upon a Kiss.” Reese had fun with the array of stunned monosyllables (“Ah! Eh! Ih!”) given to his part in the one-sided duet “Quel tuo visetto” from Haydn’s Orlando Paladino. In the evening’s most serious duet, the ravishing “Pur ti miro” from Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, their voices intertwined in an exquisite metaphor for the union of love.

Another representation of musical coupling came in the choice of instrumental ensemble, the two twinned violins and continuo line of the trio sonata, perhaps the signature chamber music combination of the baroque period. Violinists Natalie Kress and Rebecca Nelson imitated one another’s lines playfully, sharpening dissonances that then resolved into sweet consonances. Among the delectable discoveries were selections from the Suites of Nicola Matteis, an Italian violinist who worked in London, and the Ayre from Matthew Locke’s Broken Concert No. 6.

Subtle continuo contributions came from cellist Alexa Haynes-Pilon, as well as William Simms on theorbo and baroque guitar, particularly those songs where he provided the harmony without McGegan’s harpsichord. Rounding out the evening were a few poetic recitations on the follies and pleasures of love, read with comic relish and crisp diction by McGegan, serving as the evening’s convivial host.

The program will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Georgia Room in New York City. operalafayette.org