Ever since the demise of Opera Cleveland four years ago, the city has lacked a standing professional opera company. That makes conservatory productions particularly welcome, especially when they’re directed by David Bamberger. A veteran director and producer, who teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Bamberger stages several operas a year with his students, challenging them to deliver performances of a professional caliber.
For his latest, he put together a double bill of short British operas. In almost every way, they occupy opposite ends of the musical spectrum. Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas premiered in 1688, a Baroque confection that tells the classic myth of doomed love in bright melodies and lush harmonies. Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Riders to the Sea is a gloomy 1937 work based on an Irish play that relates an overwhelming family tragedy in harsh 20th century tones, relying on the rhythms of the text rather than melodic lines.
It was their common elements that intrigued Bamberger: a strong central female character, men called by the sea, and tragedy wrought by overwhelming, irresistible forces. The other common element, of course, is that both are English language operas. As Bamberger pointed out in his director’s notes, English is generally not regarded as a good language for classical singing. By the end of the evening, he and his students had proven otherwise. Riders to the Sea starts with the discovery of a dead body washed ashore that turns out to be David, the son of Maurya, and ends with the body of another son, Bartley, carried onstage after he also drowns. Two sisters fuel the growing angst that provides the narrative momentum, but the emotional weight and vocal burden of the tragedy fall mainly on Maurya, a role sung on Thursday night by Erika Rodden. A graduate student with two years experience singing in the Houston Grand Opera Chorus, Rodden gave a controlled performance, keeping a tight rein on her clear, dark mezzo-soprano. She also showed amazing stamina; the piece is not long, but her character has to sing with intensity almost the entire time, and Rodden never faltered.
Kate Kostopoulos and Zoë Schumann provided strong support as the sisters, particularly Schumann, whose anguish and anxiety palpably grew. The single room setting, with almost no action, didn’t give them much to do; nevertheless, one wished for more than hand-wringing, given Bamberger’s usual gift for dramatic invention. A metaphoric door which kept blowing open to the sound of a wind machine threatened to become corny, but Rodden’s gravitas kept the tragic arc intact.