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Esther Tonea and Fanyong Du in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, presented by the Russian Chamber Art Society Friday night at the French Embassy.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s one-act opera Iolanta, about a blind princess, her overprotective father, and the transformative power of love, boasts dazzling orchestration and stirring arias. However, due in part to the difficulty of finding singers who can navigate the Russian language, the work is seldom heard in concert.
This is just the situation the Russian Chamber Art Society exists to remedy. On Friday evening at the French Embassy, the Society presented most of Iolanta, including all the best arias. Edits removed a couple minor characters (and thus the need to engage singers for their roles). No libretto or surtitles were provided; instead, Magdalena Wór, singing the minor role of Iolanta’s nursemaid, also read narration before each scene, to give non-Russian speakers an idea of what everyone was singing about. Tatiana Storozheva provided piano accompaniment in place of Tchaikovsky’s orchestra, and the Society’s founder and artistic director Vera Danchenko-Stern also served as a Russian diction coach.
At times, one missed the grandeur and variety of the full opera with orchestra, but the reduction spotlighted the singers, and Danchenko-Stern assembled an outstanding group for this performance.
Esther Tonea’s soprano lacks the freshness that would be ideal to play the young, naïve Iolanta, and her opening arioso did not quite capture the feeling of the blind princess questioning her reality. But when Fanyong Du’s Count Vaudemont entered the fray and became smitten with Iolanta, Tonea made her romantic stirrings convincing, with thrilling high notes blossoming with passion.
Du, for his part, used his attractive, ringing tenor voice to convey his instant infatuation, particularly in his soaring aria. Indeed, at times Du got so carried away that he drowned out Tonea in their duets.
Bass Samuel Weiser made a commanding King René, with a voice full of color and authority; his regal bearing made his aria, in which he beseeches God to give Iolanta sight, all the more affecting.
Jonathan Bryan sang Robert, Duke of Burgundy, whose sole job in the narrative is to be pledged to marry Iolanta but in love with someone named Matilda instead, and Bryan gave emphatic voice to that sentiment in his swaggering aria.
Mezzo-soprano Wór matched well with Tonea and made her small role stand out; she also boasted a captivating speaking voice that made the narration compelling. Only Robert McGinness as the “Moorish” physician Ibn-Hakia was something of a weak link Friday, with his voice sounding monochromatic.
Iolanta premiered in 1892 on the same program as the Nutcracker, and the opera shows a similar mastery of orchestration; its opening, written entirely for the winds and pulsing with dark undercurrents that eventually resolve into an ecstatic string melody, is but one of many memorable uses of orchestral texture to underline the drama. There is simply no way to capture all that on the piano, but Storozheva made a creditable attempt trying, and she showed keen sensitivity and attention in her accompaniment.
Dashiell Waterbury did a fine job directing several singers on a small stage so that dramatic focus remained clear. Costumes were on loan from the Washington National Opera and a bench, a table, and some flowers served as the on-stage décor.
The moment when Iolanta realizes that she can see came off brilliantly, subtle movements from the cast suggested an opening of the world for Iolanta, with Tonea’s voice dazzling as she portrayed Iolanta’s shock at seeing light — a rousing conclusion to a performance that itself shone light on an unjustly neglected work.
The Russian Chamber Art Society presents works by Nikolai Medtner and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at the French Embassy on April 11. https://thercas.com
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