It was delightful, and lots of fun! No, this is not a review of that old Marx Brothers movie. It was funny. But this was a REAL night at a REAL Opera performance. We live a few miles South of Jerusalem. For many years there was no opera in Jerusalem. Even today, there really isn’t a theater where an opera can be completely staged. But that doesn’t mean Jerusalem residents don’t get to see operas.
There was always the option of traveling to Tel Aviv where the Israel Opera Company has their own theater. The national government and the Tel Aviv municipality provide them with a hefty subsidy, and they bring in several of the best well known international singers. But the trip to Tel Aviv take us about an hour and a half. It’s too much to drive that after the end of a performance. I love opera. So I made do with videos and CDs. Then some enterprising musicians and singers got together and created the Jerusalem Opera Company. Their first performance was staged 8 years using the Old City as an open air stage. Yes, we went, and enjoyed it. Now a few seasons later, the company puts on several operas every season. It isn’t easy, financially. Staging an opera can cost around $200,000 for a single performance. Ticket sales often don’t cover a sum that large. Fees for the artists are not large, and many of the back-stage and administrative staff are unpaid volunteers.
Enough diversions! Thursday night we went to Rigoletto at the Jerusalem Sherover Theater. The orchestra occupied most of the stage (there is no orchestra pit). The stage manager, Gabrielle Ribis, built a framework of 3 levels of platforms and stairs behind them. It was remarkably effective. The singers may not have been internationally famous, but they were not just good,they were superb. Choosing Rigoletto to open the current season was a particularly appropriate choice. It was performed a century ago in an old movie theater that has since been torn down. It is also one of my personal favorites, but then almost anything by Verdi could easily make my best operas list.
The cast for this performance included Italian singers Matteo Falcier (the Duke) and Domenico Balzani (Rigoletto) ably supported by Russian born Veronika Brook (Gilda), Denis Sedov (Sparafucile) and Alexandra Kovalevich (Maddalena). They combined their talents with other fine singers whom I will not name here for reasons of space and time. Both my wife and myself came away with a feeling of a very well spent night at the opera.
Wetherhorn 