By JAMES D. WATTS JR. Scene Writer on Oct 27, 2011, at 11:17 AM Updated on 10/28 at 1:12 PM
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The Oct. 31 issue of The New Yorker -- the one with the great George Booth cartoon of vampire and cat sitting down for a meal -- also includes Alex Ross' review of Tulsa Opera's recent production of "The Barber of Seville" and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City's first performance in its new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
"Both of the productions that I saw," Ross writes, "had more spark than the Met's first new shows this season, and, unlike the Lincoln Center simulcasts, they provided the irreproducible thrill of live action -- what Walt Whitman once called the 'liquid world' of operatic art."
Ross describes Tulsa Opera to be "known as one of the sturdier and more adventurous organizations in its class."
He described the company's "Barber" as "generally lively and well-rehearsed," although he thought it marred by "jokey detachment (that) had the effect of distancing both performers and audience from the action."
And he had qualified praise for much of the cast. He said, for example, of Sarah Coburn: "She sings with fundamental beauty of tone and pinpoint coloratura agility, adding toneful embellishments and effortlessly reaching to high C and above." All she lacked, he said, was "the emotional urgency that even a comic role like Rosina requires."
But of the orchestra and artistic director Kostis Protopapas, no qualifying phrases were necessary.
"Most impressive," Ross writes, "was the fluid, idiomatic playing of the orchestra, under the direction of Kostis Protopapas....In any city, it's rare to find a conductor who sets the right tempo so consistently, in scene after scene, that you stop noticing he is there."
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