“The Abduction From the Seraglio” is notorious for being all but impossible to stage successfully, but you wouldn’t know it from Opera Colorado’s clever, wonderfully entertaining new production of the 1782 comedy by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
As Saturday’s opening performance in the Ellie Caulkins Opera House made clear, stage director James Robinson manages to make the audience completely forget the work’s defects, including its unwieldy singspiel structure, with dialogue alternating with musical sections and some key action oddly taking place with no music at all.
Robinson has cut all but the most essential dialogue, which is still inevitably cumbersome in its original German, and turned many of what could have been boring, stand-and-deliver arias and duets into wonderfully witty vignettes.
Especially impressive is his inversion of Konstanze’s famous aria, “Torture me and flay me,” turning her potential agony into the hilarious challenge of nearly succumbing to but ultimately resisting one luxurious gift after another from her captor, Pascha Selim.
Perhaps most important was Robinson’s decision to transfer this cross-cultural kidnapping tale from 16th-century Turkey to the 1920s and the Orient Express, a move that comes off so logically and gracefully that only the most tradition-bound operagoers could object.
Significantly aiding the staging is an elegant and inventive set design by Allen Moyer – three impeccably realistic train cars from the period that shift left and right as the action’s focal point alters from one to the next.
Particularly impressive is the astonishingly believable illusion of the train pulling out of the station, suggested by a whistle, train’s lurch, pulsating lighting effects and, finally, waving people running alongside and then falling back.
Of course, none of this imaginative stagework would have made any difference if the music were not worth it. And, on that front, this opera and this production succeed in spades.
Although this work was written when Mozart was just 25, his genius can be heard here in one glorious musical moment after another. Particularly memorable is the superb quartet that ends Act 2, in which Belmonte and Pedrillo, having just questioned the faithfulness of their lovers, ask for and receive forgiveness.
Conductor Scott Terrell, leading a pit orchestra of Colorado Symphony musicians, brings out the best in the score and does an admirable job of pacing the production.
Although it does offer some superb individual moments for the singers, “Abduction” is an ensemble work and not a star vehicle. Opera Colorado has assembled a well-meshed, well-cast group of performers who are not only fine singers but also first-rate comic actors.
Soprano Maria Kanyova shines as Konstanze. The technically adept singer, with her strong, gleaming voice, handles the role’s abundant coloratura singing with precision and brings a compelling expressiveness to the dark-tinged aria, “Traurigkeit.”
She is capably balanced by tenor Charles Castronovo as Belmonte. Also strong are tenor Scott Scully as the crafty if mousy Pedrillo and soprano Amanda Pabyan as Blonde, her lovely, slightly sweet voice nicely suited to the role.
But the comic heart of the production and clearly the audience favorite is bass-baritone Dale Travis as Osmin, who was born to portray the cruel overseer of Selim’s harem.
His agile, resonant voice fits Mozart’s writing for this role to a T, and, perhaps even more important, he is a natural comedian with a knack for physical gags in the mold of Jackie Gleason or Oliver Hardy.
Samuel Mungo is underwhelming as Selim, but that is probably more the fault of the role, which, strangely, is only spoken.
The light-hearted merriment of “Abduction” is a suitable conclusion to what has been a diverse, consistently high-quality Opera Colorado season.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached 303-820-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
“The Abduction From the Seraglio”
OPERA|Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets; 7:30 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Sunday|$22-$157|303-357-2787 or operacolorado.org.
