Sala: The Haverford School: Centennial Hall

What is it about Mozart’s Così fan tutte that inspires the zaniest interpretations? While the music is lovely, replete with all those lush trios, quartets, and quintets that operagoers live for, the storyline is silly if not downright insipid.

“For some operas,” famed conductor Carlo Maria Giulini once said, “you can accept a voice of not absolute beauty – if it is well used and he is an artist and interpreter, it will work. But for Verdi you need all this plus the essential sound.

Never has the expression “A good time was had by all” been more accurate than at Tuesday night’s performance Il Barbiere di Siviglia at Centennial Hall in Haverford, Pennsylvania.

Though most of Gaetano Donizetti’s operas are not well known, Donizetti wrote dozens of them – many of the silly variety. L’Elisir d’Amore is one frothy work that not only survived, but continues to be performed around the world – frequently. L’Elisir d’Amore has a formulaic storyline: it’s war time (pick a war, any war). A lonely boy falls for a very pretty girl.

The Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA) in Philadelphia presented a concert version of a rarely performed Verdi opera, Oberto, at the Haverford School's Centennial Hall. This is, in fact, the celebrated Italian composer’s first opera, and a work that took him four years to write. The evening proved a showcase for the AVA’s talented resident artists and the many musicians supporting them.

Tucked away on Spruce Street, Philadelphia, many blocks off the glittering Avenue of the Arts is a stellar training academy with the mission of preparing world-class opera singers. It’s called the Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA), and it offers resident artists from throughout the United States and all over the world a chance to study and perform in its four-year program.