Lyric Opera 2022-2023 Issue 5 - Le Comte Ory

33 | Lyric Opera of Chicago Enrique Mazzola could write the book on taking the operatic comedies of Gioachino Rossini seriously. After all, the music director of Lyric Opera of Chicago has been applying his stylistic insights and interpretive authority to the genre of bel canto throughout his career on the podium. Having previously presided over Lyric productions of such familiar bel canto staples as Gaetano Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love (2021/22) and Lucia di Lammermoor (2016/17), as well as Vincenzo Bellini’s I puritani (2017/18), the Italian maestro is about to add a lesser-known gem from the Rossini canon to his Chicago repertoire—the infrequently performed Le Comte Ory (1828), in its belated Lyric premiere. Written for the Paris Opera and sung in French, Rossini’s third comic opera is a delectable romp of amorous pursuit and antic masquerades. It demands nothing less than a superbly virtuosic singer who can toss off the high- wire leaps, trills, roulades, and the other orid vocal gymnastics of the title role without breaking a sweat, all the while impersonating several gures, including a nun. The vocal challenges faced by the leading soprano, mezzo-soprano, and baritone are not exactly child’s play, either. Lyric Opera has gone to the mat in its casting of the brilliant American tenor Lawrence Brownlee as the libidinous young nobleman Count Ory, whose attempt to ensnare the virtuous Countess Adèle (soprano Kathryn Lewek) nds him donning a nun’s habit to gain entrance to her castle during the Crusades. Kathleen Smith Belcher is Lyric’s revival director, remounting director Bartlett Sher’s lively and inventive, Metropolitan Opera production for these Chicago performances. Preparing Le Comte Ory for performance demands from the conductor a skill set rather different from preparing a more conventional Rossini comedy such as I l barbiere di Siviglia , Mazzola said in a recent interview. He has presided over performances of the work in Japan, Italy, and elsewhere; of the Rossini comic operas, only Barbiere has enlisted his pitside services more often. “ Le Comte Ory is deliziosa , a delicious plate of pasta—witty, charming, and seductive,” Mazzola enthuses. “This is an opera you must schedule years in advance, and only if you have the right tenor for the title role. We have the very talented Larry Brownlee, one of fewer than a handful of Rossini Counts in the world. “I am very proud we are performing the original source edition, newly published by Bärenreiter, which is very precise about the articulation of the instruments and voices,” he adds. “Many opera houses still use the old 1820s edition, which is full of mistakes. Ours will be one of the most accurate productions of Le Comte Ory in the operatic landscape.” Audience members will immediately take to Rossini’s nal comic opera, Mazzola predicts, not only for its vocal splendors but also for the witty, colorful, perfectly crafted orchestral writing that frames the vocal lines. How, in the maestro’s view, does the composer structure his arias, duets, and ensembles? “Structurally, these numbers contain a lot of bel canto -istic space—they never should be taken too fast,” he observes. “They are very cantabile , in a way that’s quite unusual for Rossini. The French language adds a very natural, seductive charm to the comedy. And the fast cabalettas that end the acts require the orchestra to make a very virtuosic contribution to their musical development.” The challenges are different for the singers. “Singing the slow parts is all about ornamentation, variation, the ability to sustain and support a linear phrase—you need not only speed but beauty of line,” Mazzola notes. “And very athletic voices are required when the music speeds up, with super-fast lines and vocal jumps of eight or ten notes.” Le Comte Ory is “the ne plus ultra of Rossinian vocal virtuosity.” - Enrique Mazzola