The Opera Festival of Chicago makes no little plans.
Now in its fourth season, the company has plugged the summer opera void here with lean realizations of Italian repertoire. It’s hosted belated Chicago premieres (Ildebrando Pizzetti’s rarely heard “Assassinio nella Cattedrale”), swung for the fences (Verdi’s “Il corsaro”) and occasionally fallen flat in the doing (see: last year’s “Attila”).
But no one can accuse the young company of being unambitious. In its latest ticket at the Athenaeum in Lakeview — Luigi Dallapiccola’s “Il prigioniero” (1949) and Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Medium” (1946), in an Italian translation by the composer — the gamble more than pays off.
“The Medium” is most frequently heard in a double bill with “The Telephone,” another of Menotti’s short operas. That pairing provides the kind of comic relief that will miss attendees of OFC’s double bill by a country mile. In Dallapiccola’s rarity, the titular prisoner (Franco Pomponi) is given false hope by his jailer (David Cangelosi) and executed; Menotti’s medium, Madame Flora (Viktoria Vizin), takes advantage of grieving parents by hosting bunk séances, abetted by two cowering children. So, just your typical Thursday night out.
Double dourness aside, together the operas form such a striking diptych it’s a wonder no one has thought to pair them before. Each opens with a brash, fanfare-esque figure that recurs over its duration. Both plots, with tight principal casts of three, are driven by the whims of a manipulative villain: the Jailer/Grand Inquisitor in “Il prigioniero” and Madame Flora in “The Medium.” (The composers also did double duty as librettists for both operas.)
The curtain falls just as its title characters pose eerie, open-ended questions. (Director Harry Silverstein further underlined this parallel by having those characters stare chillingly downstage, as though posing them to the audience.) Who would have guessed Dallapiccola’s lyrical serialism — more Berg than Schoenberg — and Menotti’s musical theater–adjacent spunk would be so compatible?
In these productions, the operas were also united by the blazing presence of Vizin, singing as the prisoner’s mother and Madame Flora. Which, by the way, is no small feat: la madre is a soprano role and the medium a contralto. If the Hungarian mezzo was pushing either end of her range, her intoxicating performance left no hint.
Vizin’s dramatic range was just as formidable. Both those characters tip into insanity, and Vizin can pull off a mad scene like no one’s business, whether its mounting maternal desperation in “Il prigioniero” or witchy mania in “The Medium.” Her callously charismatic, butch personification of Madame Flora in particular stood out, inspiring the evening’s precious few laughs.
A singer like Vizin could easily overpower even accomplished colleagues. But soprano Laura McCauley matched her musically and dramatically as Flora’s daughter Monica. Her black swan aria-turned-duet (with Vizin) was swooning and ethereal, replete with moments of suspended serenity.
McCauley’s interpretation was tenderest in her stage time with actor Alex Iacobucci as Toby, the mute orphan whose burgeoning romance with Monica is cut short by tragedy. Iacobucci imbued the nonspeaking role with humor and boyish ardor. His abuse at the hands of Madame Flora is tough to watch under any circumstance, but Vizin and Iacobucci’s to-the-hilt acting made it even more so.
Pomponi, also the festival’s artistic director, was nearly unrecognizable as Dallapiccola’s shell-shocked prisoner. But there’s no mistaking his hefty baritone: he telegraphed fragility while dominating vocally, if sometimes overly pluming on vowels.
Against Pomponi, Cangelosi — an appealingly ringing tenor — has a leaner sound, and unfortunately, eardrum-puncturing highs in the orchestra encroached on his first appearance as the Jailer. At least Cangelosi’s characterization landed loud and clear: perfectly unctuous, then skin-crawlingly creepy once he’s unmasked as the Grand Inquisitor.
A promising sign of the festival’s recent growth: even bit parts were securely cast. Reuben Lillie and Giselle Milla made the most of easily overshadowed halves, as the first priest (“Il prigioniero”) and Mrs. Gobineau (“The Medium”), respectively. Lauryn Nelson wielded a pure mezzo-soprano as Mrs. Nolan, a skeptic-turned-believer who comes to depend on Madame Flora’s séances. Jonathan Wilson’s warm, inviting baritone has been an asset to Chicago’s local opera scene for years, and so it was again as the second priest and Mr. Gobineau, respectively. The antiphonal festival chorus in “Il prigioniero” — their dramatic function rather Greek — also sounded far more polished than previous seasons, with a coruscating collective sound.
Silverstein’s no-frills, naturalistic direction and Eleanor Kahn’s sets did much to place these productions above and apart. For “Il prigioniero,” a series of well-chosen woodblock projections upon black double scrims helped carry key plot points: the moment the prisoner discovers his door has been left ajar, the cedar tree that becomes his undoing, and his mother’s omen about King Philip II. “The Medium” presents a fine foil to “Il prigioniero’s” minimalism, its Victorian receiving room romping with color and ornament.
Helmed by Lyric Opera concertmaster Robert Hanford, the excellent pickup orchestra played just in front of the stage in lieu of the Athenaeum’s pit, still under construction. Festival music director Emanuele Andrizzi’s conducting was taut and cogent, though he’d best strike better balances in time for “Il prigioniero’s” second run.
“Il Prigioniero & The Medium” repeats 2 p.m. July 14 at the Athenaeum Center for Thought & Culture, 2936 N. Southport Ave.; tickets $26-$46 at athenaeumcenter.org
Hannah Edgar is a freelance critic.
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