The Italian Girl in Algiers
The Italian Girl in Algiers (L'italiana in Algeri)
Florentine Opera
March 18 2011
Cast
Isabella: Daniela Mack
Lindoro: Robert McPherson
Mustafa: Kevin Glavin
Taddeo: Daniel Belcher
Elvira: Erica Schuller
Zulma: Julia Elise Hardin
Haly: Scott Johnson
And some other people who didn't get listed in the playbill, but they were an awesome chorus
I have never seen anything by the Florentine Opera before, and I saw this show being advertised along with a bunch of other stuff. I read the description of it, and it sounded interesting, but then I sort of forgot about it. And when I saw that they only had three performances, I sort of thought this one would be a miss. Then I saw a fantastic deal that they were offering, two orchestra tickets for $50. Not $50 each, not $50 plus all the building fees, just straight $50 for some pretty prime orchestra seats. That pretty much settled that.
The show was performed in Italian, but they had an LED screen above the stage that translated for the singers. I'm not sure that it translated absolutely everything, but enough that it was easy to follow along. I'm sort of used to reading the things that I am watching, and this was no different. Mustafa, the bey (ruler) of Algiers, is tired of his wife, Elvira, and wants to have an Italian woman in his harem. Isabella is an Italian woman who is shipwrecked and brought to the palace. But she is a resourceful woman, and soon has the bey eating out of her hand, and engineers her escape, as well as getting him back together with his happy wife. So it's mostly happily ever after for everybody.
The costumes and the set were amazing. There was so much color, and the dresses on the girls were awesome. We switched around from a few different places. First we were in Elvira's room, which had her couch/bed in it. Then, a different room of the palace, with the curtain lowered in the background so that they could change the scene.
The shipwreck was great. They had the waves and a ship moving across the wave, very old school. I could totally imagine the stage hands moving things around, although I think that in this case, it was mostly mechanical, but I could be wrong.
Then we were in the throne room, where Mustafa's throne was up on a dais for all to see. There were also random elephants hanging down from the ceiling. During the finale of the first act, they did some fun things with the set.
Later, we went to Isabella's room in the palace, which was shown by bringing in furniture for her.
During the finale, we had two scenes running at once. The Italians on the beach, boarding their ship to leave, and the Algiers people staying behind in the palace. They did this pretty well by having a scrim separating the two groups, showing that the Italians were further away.
I think that it would be very difficult for me to pick a favorite character out of the principles. I liked them all, and I think that everybody did an amazing job. Since they were singing in Italian, and we couldn't actually understand them, it was very important that they used expressions and motions to convey what was going on. I think that some of the expressions were somewhat exaggerated, which helped.
So starting with the Algerians...
We had Elvira, the wife of the bey, who is miserable because her husband doesn't like her any more. I thought that her dress was very pretty. She was the soprano of the show, and she did hit some impressively high notes. One thing that was quite funny about her was how she would snap in and out of being sad and depressed. "Oh woe is me, my husband doesn't like me anymore. cries" "I have a plan!" says Isabelle. "Wonderful! cheerful" and back and forth, and so it went.
Mustafa's plan to be rid of her is to marry her off to one of his slaves, Lindoro. She's not pleased about this.
She goes along with Isabella's plans to get back together with his husband. During the finale of the first act, Elvira had a fun moment. More about that later.
Elvira's handmaiden/slave/whatever, Zulma was a bit quicker off the mark than her mistress. She was a bit braver than Elvira, and more willing to stand up to Mustafa. That said though, Elvira also stepped forward to defend her. They were a good team, actually, I think. I could tell by the way they interacted that they were also close friends. Zulma also was assigned to wait on Isabella, but when the other woman was being difficult, she sorta of rolled her eyes in an amused fashion. The way I saw it, Isabella was gearing up for "battle" and needed everything perfect.
Finally, Zulma and Haly were fun to watch together. Being in similar social positions, they make a good pairing. There was a cute scene where the two of them are enjoying a bottle of wine together, and then Haly started going on about how clever and beautiful Italian women are. Zulma wasn't too pleased. She took the bottle and stalked off.
Haly was the leader of the corsairs(pirates) that work for Mustafa, the bey. He was awesome. His part wasn't that huge, in that he didn't get many sweeping solos. The only time he really sang by himself was when he was going on about Italian women. He sings praises of Isabella because she is controlling Mustafa in such an efficient manner. Mustafa really picks on him. He charges Haly with finding an Italian woman that Mustafa can add to his harem. Otherwise, he'll stab Haly with his own spear. That doesn't give him much of a choice.
Mustafa picks on Haly quite a bit, actually, poor guy. He had the funniest expressions when Mustafa pushed him around. There was one moment when Mustafa told him to kneel down so that he would have something to stand on so he could pose impressively.
Nobody really liked Mustafa all that much. The chorus made fun of him quite a bit for being silly. I think he was portrayed very well as sort of a blustering man who is a bit full of himself. He's not overly cruel, but he is selfish, and he is used to getting his way. He appears to think that everybody is doing as he says because they like him, but it's really just because he's in charge.
Mustafa went through a couple different costume changes. Most of the time he was wearing this yellow outfit, but there were a few occasions when he was in his "formal" attire, which was a big robe and a gigantic turban.
He pretty much bossed everyone around, except for Isabella, the Italian woman who knows how to handle men.
Isabella is the title character. Her lover has been missing from Italy for a very long time, and finally she set off to search for him. Unfortunately her ship was wrecked and they washed up on the shore of Algiers. Haly is ecstatic when he finds out that she's Italian, and tells her that she will be taken to Mustafa's harem straight away, to be honored (and, y'know, be part of his harem). Isabella takes this pretty well, actually. She figures that she has no choice, and she is confident in her ability to get herself out of this mess. She sings this song about men, and how easy it is to control them if you know how. The song was funny to watch as she proceeded to make all of Haly's men practically swoon over her.
Later, when she meets Mustafa, and finds out that he is divorcing his wife in favor of having Isabella as his lover, she won't stand for that. She tells him that she will not be his lover unless he promises not to divorce his wife. This is rather confusing to everyone.
Later, she takes Elvira into her confidence and says that she has a plan to get Mustafa back with her. She tells Elvira that in Italy, the women train their husbands. Elvira faints at the thought.
Isabella has a travelling companion: Taddeo. He is madly in love with her, although she is still faithful to her missing lover. I thought that he was hilarious. She keeps telling him that she doesn't love him, and that she won't love him, but that's not about to discourage him. As such, he annoys her quite a bit. In order to save himself, he pretends to be her uncle. Since Isabella is greatly favored by Mustafa, Taddeo will be as well.
He had the most fantastic expressions. On more than one occasion when he was upset (which happened a lot) he would kneel there, with a rather distraught expression. He did this fun thing with his fingers too, he'd be holding his umbrella (or whatever) and rather rapidly run his fingers along it. It was cute.
He gets "honored" by Mustafa with the title of Kaimakan. This comes with a ridiculous outfit, long robes with very long sleeves and a silly hat. Taddeo did not like his hat, and he kept taking it off, and Mustafa kept putting it back on him.
Lindoro is an Italian man who was shipwrecked three months ago. Now he is trapped as a favored slave in the bey's palace. Although he is well treated, he is very sad because he misses his love, who is back in Italy. After singing a song about his he misses his love, Mustafa comes in and tells him that he has a wife for him. In a strange occurrence of events that I would have seen coming, even if I hadn't read the plot summary ahead of time, Isabella is Lindoro's lost love.
I thought that Lindoro also had the most fantastic expressions. He pretty much just went along with whatever Isabella wanted him to do, even when she picked on him a bit. He also does help a bit with the plan for the Italians to all escape.
So those are all the main characters. Now on to some of my favorite scenes.
The scene where Mustafa told Lindoro that he was to marry Elvira was quite funny. Lindoro tried to object, first he tries pointing out his lowly status, but that doesn't work. Then he listed a lot of qualities that a woman that he would marry would have to possess. Mustafa kept assuring him that this woman (Elvira) possessed all of these qualities. Lindoro was pretty fun to watch during this song as he grew increasingly more uncomfortable. Seeing has how he wasn't cooperating, Mustafa comes out with a long chain, which he locks around Lindoro's wrist and drags him off the stage. Lindoro fights this a bit, but ultimately gets dragged off. It was quite funny watching Mustafa chasing Lindoro around the stage while Lindoro tried not to look like he was openly running away.
Another scene that I rather liked was when Isabella and Taddeo were pondering what to do now. They are still on the beach, being guarded by four guards. The two are fighting and try to storm off away from each other, but the guards won't let them leave. They finally decide to stop fighting because they're all they have in this strange place.
The finale of the first act was great. Isabella finds out that Mustafa is sending Elvira and Lindoro off to get married. As I mentioned, Isabella says that she won't be Mustafa's lover if he divorces his wife, but one of the reasons for that is that she recognizes Lindoro. The two can't have a joyful reunion though, because they can't let Mustafa know. When Mustafa tells Isabella that Lindoro is to marry Elvira, behind Mustafa's back, Lindoro is frantically shaking his head, trying to tell Isabella that it's not his idea.
The main characters all moved up to the dais, singing a song about how confusing all of this is, and it's driving them all nuts. And then, the chorus unlatched something and split the platform into six sections, wheeling the main characters forward. Then they proceeded to "juggle" them.
It was one of those songs where everyone is singing all at once, and Lindoro's part earned a lot of laughs from the audience. I'm not sure what he was saying exactly, but one portion of what he was singing was "Tock, tock."
Elvira, the soprano, let forth with this sustained high note as they pushed her back and forth across the stage.
The throne room, as I said before, was decorated with pictures of elephants dangling from the ceiling. While the main characters were being juggled about the stage, the elephants were swinging back and forth, very quickly.
In the second act, there were some other memorable scenes. Taddeo is "promoted", and is not too pleased about it. That sequence was funny, as it started with Taddeo running in away from a man with a very very large sword. However, as it turned out, that sword was supposed to be a gift to him because of his new position. It was either accept the position, or be stabbed by Haly's spear. Haly looked rather sad when Taddeo accepted.
Isabella is getting ready for her next encounter with Mustafa, making herself even more beautiful with very shiny jewelry. As she sings this song, behind her, three men are watching her: Taddeo, Mustafa, and Lindoro. They are all hiding under trap doors. In a moment that really did make me laugh out loud, Isabella holds up a mirror to look at her reflection and all three men ducked down, so she wouldn't see their reflection.
Mustafa expected to have coffee with Isabella, and he tells Taddeo to leave him when he sneezes. Well, Mustafa keeps sneezing and sneezing, but Taddeo won't leave. Lindoro doesn't leave them alone either, by Isabella's command (He's her servant now). And to add to the fun, Isabella has invited Elvira to join them as well. It was pretty funny as everyone thwarted Mustafa's plans. He kept getting progressively more frustrated.
Ultimately, Lindoro and Taddeo tell Mustafa that Isabella plans to honor him by granting him the title of " Pappataci." Lindoro is very clearly making this up as he goes along, and it was pretty funny. Every time the Bey wasn't looking, he'd start laughing.
They have a formal induction ceremony, where Mustafa takes the oath of the Pappataci. Basically, his duties are to sit and eat and ignore everything else that is going on. Then Isabella will truly respect him. The ceremony was pretty funny, with Mustafa repeating after Taddeo. Taddeo would say funny things, and pronounce Mustafa's name oddly, and Mustafa just repeated after him in kind. It was great.
Mustafa settles down with Taddeo for his final test. He is to sit and eat and ignore everything else that is going on. He starts to get upset when Lindoro and Isabella (finally) start being affectionate with each other, but with encouragement from Taddeo, he focuses in on eating. They had a big bowl of spaghetti, and all I have to say about this was, "way to eat spaghetti, Mustafa!" He really put it away, and at the end of the scene, he had spaghetti on his beard.
I was a little bit worried at the end for Taddeo. All of the other Italians are back on the ship, about to leave, and Taddeo is still with the bey. He realizes now that he will never have Isabella, and he contemplated for a bit about what to do. But ultimately he sheds his fancy robes and hurries off. Since he was in the background with the other Italians, he made it to the ship, so that made me happy. Even if he was sort of an antagonist to the lovers, I still liked him and wanted him to get away too.
At the very end, after realizing that he's been had, Mustafa turns to his wife and asks for her forgiveness. Italian women are entirely too much work. Haly and Zulma are cutely cuddling in the background.
So all ends happily ever after, more or less.
This was my first experience with this company, and I have to say, it was pretty awesome. I'm sure that one of the main reasons that I liked it was because it was a comedy. I like those better than tragedies. I'm not sure that I'm completely sold on seeing operas in Italian on a regular basis, but I really enjoyed this one.