Man of La Mancha
Central City Opera: 7/18 – 8/9
Robert Orth as Cervantes/Don Quixote
Central
City Opera’s production of the Tony Award-winning musical, Man of La Mancha is
a play within a play. While Don Miguel de Cervantes awaits his trial by the
Spanish Inquisition he is put on trial by the other prisoners in this jail as
well. To keep from having his manuscript destroyed
Cervantes self-transforms into Don Quixote de La Mancha and has all of the
inmates join him as he enacts the story.
We watch as the prisoners who judge their
new comrade move from cynicism to an expansive embrace of the Ideal. The
ascension from a world of disgrace and sexual violence to one in which there is
only the Quest for the Highest and Best in all of Life is emotionally rousing
and profoundly spiritual.
At certain
moments in the proceedings in which Cervantes’ work speaks directly to the
heart David Martin Jacques’ lighting design causes a bank of lights (the
blinding light of Spiritual Truth!) to
ascend temporarily blinding us to the tawdry and transitory facts of life in
the prison.
Robert
Orth commands the stage as the aging idealist Cervantes and his brave and noble
– if somewhat eccentric - knight, Don Quixote. Orth’s singing of “The
Impossible Dream” will make your chest heave and eyes fill. Outstanding!
Lucy
Schaufer sings and acts the humiliated scullery maid Aldonza with heartbreaking
brio. Her arc from seeing herself as a gutter dweller in “It’s All the Same” to
the acceptance of her true spiritual nature as “Dulcinea” is soul shredding.
Keith
Jameson is outstanding as Quixote’s faithful sidekick, Sancho Panza. This artist,
who is leaner and better looking than most who play this role, has impeccable
comic timing and a magnificent tenor.
The
governor/innkeeper Adelmo Guidarelli, affectionately known as “the clown prince
of opera,” stuns with his vocals of “The
Dubbing” and “Knight of the Woeful Countenance.”
The trio of
Padre (Michael Kuhn), Housekeeper (Molly Jane Hill) and Cervantes’ niece, Antonia
(April Martin) is all honeyed harmony as these three worry about their “crazy”
uncle and friend in “I’m Only Thinking of Him.”
As played
by the scrumptious Central City Opera orchestra under the baton of conductor
Adam Turner, the Tony Award-winning score by Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion is a rousing,
ear-pleasing wonder.
If there
were one thing one might wish to ask of the director it would be that those awaiting
their fate at the hands of the Grand Inquisitor may wish to show a little fear
and trepidation as they are marched off to execution. Small criticism for an otherwise beautifully realized production.
This production has been rated PG-13 for sexual
violence.
PERFORMANCE
DATES (ALL AT THE CENTRAL CITY OPERA HOUSE):
Matinees at
2:30 pm: July 22*, 25, 26*, 28; August 1, 5, 7, 9
Evenings at
8:00 pm: July 18, 24, 30
Performed in
English.
Running
time: 2 hours and 25 minutes with one 20-minute
intermission
No comments:
Post a Comment