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BACKSTAGE

Review of “Il Trittico”
By Peggy Ann Bliss

It was a long evening, but Puerto Rico’s first ever production of Giacomo Puccini’s “Il Trittico” had mesmerized the audience, until they let it all out in giggles at the end.

They evening took the audience future to past in time and in emotions from horror to hysteria.

The challenge of getting so many top-drawer singers together in one production has finally been met, and Puerto Rican opera is in its prime. More than 20 top singers handled all the parts backed up by musical director Kamal Khan in the pit with a reduced Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra doing, as always a supremely professional job, of an avant-garde score which complemented the various periods of the evening’s drama.

The Opera de Puerto Rico production opened with the horrific tale of a cloak which can provide warmth, love, joy, and ultimately death and doom. Set in the early 20th century, it is a masterpiece of ITAL verismo ITAL down to the stark stage setting of a rusty red barge, by none other than Valenzuela, the ubiquitous Renaissance man.

Baritone Guido Lebrón, as the ship’s possessive captain, Michele dominates this love triangle, but the cast is completed majestically by soprano Rosa Baker D’Imperio) as his wife Giorgetta, tenor César Hernández as Luigi, her lover, and La Frugola, sung by mezzo soprano Patricia Cay.



“A Chorus Line”
 
"A Chorus Line" was a crowd pleaser
Another wonderful evening was an English-language revival of Chorus Line in Caguas, coinciding with the 25th-anniversary staging of the immortal musical in New York. The Puerto Rican production with excellent choreography and staging by the legendary Waldo González, directing by Albert Rodríguez,  and a performance of a lifetime by the ageless Marian Pabón, who should have been on Broadway, herself. Braulio Castillo, Jr., was a fine Zack, holding the young cast together. Among our familiar faces were Daniela Droz, Pili Montilla and Angel Viera, all veterans of the recent Telemundo soap opera “Dueña y Señora.” It was funny to be sitting next to Brenda Lee, who played the role of Mariela in the novela as she watched her sister (Droz), husband (Viera) and father (Castillo) onstage.
 
Nashalí Enchautegui, a household name among television viewers, also interpreted the role of Val nicely.
 
A back up chorus was handled by conservatory-trained singers Jo-Ann Herrero, who directs some of the island’s best choruses, and young soprano Yanzelmalee Rivera.
 
Due to popular demand, as they say, the show did a one-night stand in San Juan on Nov. 18.


“Fahrenheit 451”
 
An excellent choice for Artefacto, a new company of actors who want to perform in English at all costs.
 
The play by science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, best known for his Tales of the Twilight Zone, deals with censorship and conformity, in the era of Internet, television and tabloid newspapers.
 
Written in 1953, the play takes place sometime in the 24th century during which the state has determined that books threaten the social order. In Fahrenheit 451 -- whose title refers to the temperature at which paper will burned  -- these dangerous weapons from Aristotle to Zeno Gandía are burned. Using the elements of video, aided by futuristic costumes and makeup, Jorge Vargas’s geometric stage set, and an excellent sound track combining rock with Beethoven, director Carlos Alberto López complements the futuristic tone of the dialogue
 
With Beatty, played by Héctor Sánchez, as the foil and older fireman, Montag begins to wake up to the pleasures of books, not only through the continuous but delicate preaching by Clarisse (Maribel Suárez)  but also through Samantha Mark’s charming interpretation of the aging Irish lady Mrs. Hudson, who prefers to die with her books.  
 
One of the best parts here is realizing that one has avoided the book-burning era and actually recognizes most of the literary references, such as Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach,” and Alexander Pope’s couplets.


“Aeroplanos”
 
The excellent psychological tragi-comedy about two aging baseball players, written by Argentinean Carlos Gorostiza, gave young actors Julio Ramos and Alberto Zambrana a chance to shine under the deft hand of Joselo Arroyo. The excellent makeup was done by Bryan Villarini.
 
The play, which was adapted to Puerto Rico, retaining, nevertheless, the elements of tango, as well as the bolero, but it is the perceptions of these simple men who have never been in an airplane that has the audience laughing and crying at the same time. The theater-in-the round atmosphere of the Coribantes Theater was an excellent venue for this intimate drama.