Review: Signs of Rebirth at New York City Opera

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Is New York City Opera, which went under in 2013, finally back in business? Last January, the reorganized company, under its general director, Michael Capasso, made a tentative comeback with an uneven production of Puccini’s “Tosca.” June brought a colorful production of Daniel Catán’s maudlin “Florencia en el Amazonas.”

In a program note for this season’s opening production, Mr. Capasso asserts that this year, with eight varied offerings, including four full stagings, is a “new chapter” in City Opera’s history. On Thursday that chapter opened at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center with an unusual double bill of Rachmaninoff’s early, seldom heard one-act opera “Aleko,” and Leoncavallo’s enduringly popular “Pagliacci.”

Those expecting this production to signal a true renaissance for City Opera may be expecting too much. Still, the performance offered animated, if sometimes scrappy, playing by the New York City Opera Orchestra under the conductor James Meena, and vibrant singing from the company’s chorus.

It was an inspired idea to pair “Aleko” and “Pagliacci,” both first heard in the spring of 1892 — the Rachmaninoff in Moscow, the Leoncavallo in Milan. Each tells of transients who live somewhat apart from their larger cultures. Each turns on a love triangle that ends with an avenging murder. “Pagliacci” depicts a roving band of comedic players in Italy. “Aleko,” adapted from a Pushkin poem, focuses on a caravan of Gypsies who have been joined by the title character, a jaded older man determined to escape the stultifying conventions of urban life.

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“Aleko” was Rachmaninoff’s graduation piece for the Moscow Conservatory. Assigned the stilted libretto by his composition teacher, he wrote the 60-minute score in three weeks, including the orchestration. (He had just turned 19.) Besides earning the highest possible grade, Rachmaninoff got his first publication and announced himself a great hope of Russian music.

In later years, he dismissed the piece as juvenilia. It certainly takes a standard approach to opera, with set-piece arias and dances, and has derivative musical elements. Still, Rachmaninoff’s mature voice already comes through in the chromatic richness of the harmonic writing, the abundant lyricism and the glowing orchestration.

The story is heavy on melodrama. After an appealing choral scene for the contented Gypsies, an old man (here the stentorian bass Kevin Thompson) tells a somber tale of a woman he once loved who ran off with a man from another camp. Aleko (the sturdy bass Stefan Szkafarowsky), who is married to the winsome young Zemfira (the dark-toned soprano Inna Dukach), says he would never put up with such a betrayal. But Zemfira has fallen for a dashing young lover (the bright tenor Jason Karn) and flaunts her affair in Aleko’s face. After an anguished aria of despair, a highlight of the score, Aleko kills the young lovers and is banished from the camp.

The one fresh touch in Lev Pugliese’s very traditional production involves updating the setting to suggest the mid-20th century. The set, designed by John Farrell, shows a freight train in the background, and run-down buildings on the outskirts of some town. The same set, with some tweaks, is used for “Pagliacci,” where the train becomes a makeshift theater for the roving players.

“Pagliacci” offers strong, if not exceptional, vocal performances in the leading roles. The tenor Francesco Anile brings a sizable, somewhat nasal voice to Canio, the betrayed husband. As Nedda, his straying wife, the soprano Jessica Rose Cambio sings with agile coloratura and mostly shimmering sound. The baritone Michael Corvino is the humiliated Tonio, whose aggressive advances are stingingly rejected by Nedda. The youthful baritone Gustavo Feulien, as Silvio, the villager Nedda falls for, makes the most of his intense scene with her.

An enthusiastic audience showed up for the opening event in what should be a revealing, even defining, season for the rebooted City Opera.