Ménages a trois are rare sights on the stage of the Lyric Opera, but one makes an appearance in “Le Comte Ory,” the rather ribald comic opera from Gioachino Rossini, here to warm the cockles of subscribers’ hearts just as the weather in Chicago turns chilly.
The amusing scene occurs deep in the second act and involves the titular seducer, who has already disguised himself as a hermit, and then as a nun, to try and win over Countess Adele, who has been at least feigning a lack of interest. The Countess decides to teach the inventive count a lesson and, as a big bed appears on the Lyric Stage, she arranges for the page, Isolier, to be the first body his hands reach. That’s weird for Isolier, who is besotted with the Countess and, well, it’s also complicated for the other pair.
These days, such operatic antics are tonally complex, of course. And it’s worth noting that the Broadway director Bartlett Sher’s production of this opera has had a long shelf life prior to its debut this weekend at the Lyric: it was first seen at New York’s Metropolitan Opera nearly 11 years ago, back when the world was a very different place both inside and outside the opera house. Based on what I saw and heard Sunday compared to prior reports, I suspect the sexuality of the piece has been toned down from a decade ago.
That said, the delightfully assertive coloratura soprano Kathryn Lewek — as amusing as she is vocally adept — is on hand now to freshen the proceedings as Adele. Lewek’s comic timing is as remarkable as her voice and listening to her flex and leap up and down the scale is perhaps the biggest pleasure of the afternoon.
I should note, for those unfamiliar with the piece, that Isolier was written as a so-called trousers role, played here by Kayleigh Decker, an American mezzo-soprano with a wry, ironic wink very much in service of Rossini’s form of comic opera, albeit also vocally rooted in old-fashioned, unrequited desire. The two women generally overwhelm Lawrence Brownlee’s Orly in the scene, which makes a certain amount of dramatic and political sense, given that a lusty and less-than-forthcoming group of knights trying to worm their way into a French convent isn’t as easy to pull off as comedy anymore. Although amusing and adept, Brownlee’s vocal performance feels a tad under powered in places, but then that helps the women dominate here, as they should, if only as a way to increase agency and leaven the plotting. All of Decker’s work Sunday was received with palpable delight.
Sher’s staging, which features a set from Michael Yeargan and a costume design (typified by entertainingly wide and elaborate headgear) from Catherine Zuber, has a kind of loose outer frame. The dramatic action begins under the customary curtain speeches and it is as if we are in some shaggy old opera house, replete with a trestle-like stage and a prompter thumping his cane to make things happen, a sound that weirdly, and perhaps aptly, put me in mind of the recent, constant changing of the guard at Queen Elizabeth’s lying in state.
We see the stage crew put various effects into place, including cranking up the aforementioned bed, although on Lyric’s stage, the frame actually ends up being subsumed by its own more elaborate surroundings.
“Le Comte Ory,” from 1828, is famously known as a kind of blended opera, an amalgam of the best of the music from a previous Rossini effort, “Il viaggio a Reims,” composed to celebrate the coronation of King Charles X, with a new (now French) libretto from Charles-Gaspard Delestre-Poirson and Euge`ne Scribe, who was the French equivalent of a studio hack, turning out literally hundreds of plays. So you might say it is a lot more unified, and much more impressive, than its genesis would suggest.
Sher’s staging, which also features the vocally elegant Zoie Reims as Ragonde, the attendant to the Countess, walks a deft tonal tightrope. At the performance I saw, the bass understudy Ian Rucker sounded rich indeed in the role of Raimbaud, normative sidekick to Ory.
You get to hear, of course, some of the most famous recitatives ever penned by Pesaro’s favorite son. And the Lyric’s conductor, Enrique Mazzola, clearly enjoys playing up the contrast between the self-evident quirkiness of the music with the striking intense melodies and harmonics that often touch the emotions as they emerge among all the fake hermits, nuns and pilgrims.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “Le Comte Ory” (3 stars)
When: Through Nov. 26
Where: Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive
Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Tickets: $40-$330 at 312-827-5600 or www.lyricopera.org
