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Amanda Winfield photo by Susan Roth
This spring, Michael Capasso's Dicapo Opera Theatre, quartered in the basement of St. Jean Baptiste Church, on the Upper East Side, is giving " Passion," perhaps the most operatic of Stephen Sondheim's musicals, with book by James Lapine. This deeply disturbing, romantic theater piece, exploring both obsession and the titular emotion, concerns a handsome Italian soldier and the two very different women in his life. It won the Tony Awards for best musical, original score and book of a musical in 1994, but ran for just eight months. Although some scenes can still make one cringe or shudder, it deserves to be heard again and Dicapo has assembled an excellent company for this eight-performance run.
Paris Cheffer and Bess Morrison photo by Susan Roth
The sharply contrasting women are the soldier, Giorgio's beautiful, married mistress, Clara, and the sickly, needy Fosca, who manipulates and ensnares him with her desperate, demanding, often pathetic and burdensome love for him. The striking principals are mezzo-soprano Bess Morrison as an ultimately sympathetic Fosca, baritone Paris Cheffer as Giorgio, and soprano Amanda Winfield as Clara. The strong supporting cast includes Larry Raiken as Fosca's cousin, Colonel Ricci; Lou Tally as Fosca's physician, Dr. Tambouri, who brings Fosca and Giorgio together, for better or for worse; and Tim Norwood as Fosca's ne'er-do-well ex-husband, Count Ludovic, a bigamist (or polygamist?) who gambles away her dowry. Costumer Angela Huff has dressed Winfield, as the fair Clara, largely in pastels and Morrison, as the dark Fosca, in largely gloomy hues. Set designer John Farrell has bed, dining table, castle garden ruins, piano and so on brought on as needed. Under Capasso's guidance, Morrison plays Fosca as ailing and morbid, but not physically repulsive, as Tony Award winner Donna Murphy made her on Broadway, and this change is effective.
Is "Passion" a musical or an opera (if it is necessary to categorize it at all)? The two leading women's roles lie somewhat low for operatic soprano and mezzo, as parts in a musical might, but Giorgio's music fits the classically trained baritone well. There is little dialogue. Long stretches are through-composed. Fosca and Giorgio's angry outbursts and later confessions--her "Loving You (is not a choice)" and his " No One Has ever Loved Me (as deeply as you)"—are arias. The duets, septet about Fosca's early life and unhappy marriage, and numbers for the full company are operatic ensembles more than a musical's songs, and conductor Mark Flint and the orchestra give them all operatic sweep.
Dicapo Opera Theatre 184 East 76th St, off Lexington Ave
April 24-27 & May 1-3 at 8 pm & April 27 & May 4 at 4 pm
Tickets $45 212/759-7652
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