stro Zanetti once again proved to be the embodi- ment of everything that is right with opera. The rest of the production was more of a study in things that are wrong with opera. The problems started
immediately. An escaped prisoner enters the cathe- dral set and begins look- ing for a key to a chapel in which he can hide. The prisoner is Angel- lotti, the consul of the failed Roman Republic that preceded the regime that Scarpia serves. Angellotti did the
same thing every Ang- ellotti does — he stag- gered around the stage demonstrating his extreme fatigue. Repeti- tive stumbling becomes silly after one or two pratfalls. The physical acting adds nothing to the show and can create an operatic anachronism as was the case here. After finding the
key at the foot of a five- foot-tall marble statue, Angellotti got up with so much feigned fatigue that the statue wobbled on the table it was rest- ing on. It sounds petty, but that type of unforced error takes the audience’s attention away from the
opera and onto the idea of styrofoam sculptures. Close on the heels
on the wobbling statue, the Sacristan, a sort of church custodian, walked into the cathedral and looked around in awe as if seeing it for the first time. Now, the Sacristan is an older man so maybe he sees the cathedral for the first time whenever he leaves and comes back in. But I don’t think that is what was going on. Like Angelotti’s pro- longed stumbling, it felt clumsy. When Cavaradossi
enters, sung by Gwen Hughes Jones, he and the Sacristan engage in several physical jokes that aren’t necessarily based on the character but are rather bits which are considered funny by
the actor or the director. Those types of physical bits are never funny and once again they put a little mark of distraction on the show. Then we had tourists
entering the cathedral and being shooed away by the Sacristan. What in the name of God are tourists doing walking around Rome? Napoleon and his army of rapa- cious Frenchmen are just up the road. How many people have canceled trips to Paris this year after the terrorist attacks? That’s right. No tourists. But something needs to happen onstage, right? No, no it doesn’t. P uc c ini wr ot e
some music to set the tone for the scene as Cavaradossi prepares to continue his paint-
R E S E A R C H S T U D I E S
San Diego Reader February 25, 2016 25
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