Kansas City Symphony serves up a zesty celebration of Italian opera
“Andiamo reali! Go Royals!” cheered music director Michael Stern at the Kansas City Symphony’s “Festa Italiana” performance on Friday night, happening concurrent to the Royals’ ultimately successful battle for the American League pennant. The turnout in Helzberg Hall was good, even so, and the orchestra with the Kansas City Symphony Chorus brought forth an impressive feat of operatic proportions.
The concert featured famous choruses and orchestral interludes from some of opera’s most adulated composers, with selections from Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini mixed with favorites from Gioachino Rossini, Ruggiero Leoncavallo and Pietro Mascagni. Just like the popular songwriters of our own age, these 19th century Italians knew how to deliver unforgettable melodies and an emotive gut punch in four minutes or less.
This show was something of an operatic highlights reel and the orchestra and singers did not stint on the delivery. The first half, especially, was fun and thrilling, relatable, dramatic and good humored; an admittedly distracted, yet engaging Stern delivered comments (and score updates) from the podium.
The selections served to illustrate the impact and versatility of the chorus: Leoncavallo’s joyful “Bell Chorus” from “Pagliacci,” the festive, full voiced “Matador’s Chorus” from Verdi’s “La traviata,” a wrenching “Humming Chorus” from Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly,” pensive “Regina coeli” from Mascagni’s “Cavalleria rusticana” and the sobbing strains of Verdi’s “Patria oppressa” from “Macbeth.”
The 160-voice ensemble, directed by Charles Bruffy, was triple or even quadruple the forces of the average opera chorus and it produced an astounding mass of sound, yet for the most part diction was clear, contrasts in dynamics overt (even if true pianissimos were a challenge) and balance maintained.
The orchestral interludes were likewise examples of distilled emotional intensity, especially the exuberance of Rossini’s “L’Italiana in Algeri” overture and the thrill of Verdi’s “Nabucco” overture. The cohesive ensemble captivated in Puccini’s “La tragendo” from “Le villi” and, led by exceptional soloists, in the saturated sorrow of Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut” Act III intermezzo.
The “Anvil Chorus” from Verdi’s “Il trovatore” served as finale to the first set with dramatic contrasts, brilliant flutes and rumbling timpani, and, as a theatrical flourish, brake drums clanging antiphonally across the ensemble.
The concert’s finish was, appropriately, the glorious “Triumphal March” from Verdi’s “Aida” with the chorus in full vigor and the orchestra persistently pushing the front of the beat with excitement and energy, the hall reverberating with trumpet fanfares and lingering chords.
Bravissimo, tutti.
This story was originally published October 24, 2015 at 8:10 AM with the headline "Kansas City Symphony serves up a zesty celebration of Italian opera."