A VALIANT FIRST OPERA ABOUT A BROKEN-HEARTED DIVA
                    Composer Rufus Wainwright's Fragile French Love Story 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of June 16-23, 2010
                                                                  Vol. 12, No. 111
          TORONTO, CANADA---A new bitter-sweet French opera got sell-out red-carpet treatment here as it was composed by the popular singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, a versatile musical figure who also has considerable French-Canadian credentials.
            The new "Prima Donna" produced touching moments;  an endearing diva wrestles with a stage comeback as her love for the medium is permeated by her thwarted love life. Think Tosca, Miss Havisham and the Marschallin, all blended into one, and translated into French.
            Can a young composer ring the bell with the very first opera? Only rarely has it happened. But Wainwright fashioned a story with tensions between each of the protagonists, focusing on the bigger-than-life saga of the title-role Parisian figure Régine, a sympathetic figure you are drawn to from the start. The vocal lines are effective and traditional, growing out of the lean side of romanticism, somewhat like Charpentier's "Louise," but also with some Richard Strauss influences. There are sweet soliloquies, effective duets and a large ensemble piece bringing down the first-act curtain.  But ultimately, this considerable  effort founders with an ineffective libretto, a total lack of conciseness, no subplot, and inexperience in orchestration. Adding to the problem at the June 14 North American premiere was the site: the elderly 1913 theater (the Elgin), where the pit orchestra of 40 sounded like little more than an octet.
            Blame "Prima Donna" for Wainwright's cancellation of his long-awaited San Francisco Symphony gig April 7-10. A revised mounting of the work for its London debut forced Wainwright to return to Europe, thereby scrambling up the SFS schedule. Presumably, his commissioned world premiere song cycle on Shakespeare will turn up in future SFS seasons.
            Régine forgets the cardinal rule on stage: Believe in yourself. She had abruptly lost her voice in the midst of a run in an opera tailor-made for her.  In her comeback attempt she is interviewed by the young tenor-journalist André (naturally, we critics are all polyglot operatic whizzes, just waiting in the wings, parts memorized) and falls in love. The best scene shows her dream sequence, playing the opera itself opposite André. The dream is shattered when he appears the next day with a young fiancée in tow “that I forgot to mention.” The diva then shuts down her life, burns all her memorabilia, and  turns more reclusive than ever.
            The cast sang in French (even though none of the performances are in France) but was almost entirely British. The hit of the show was the actress-soprano Janis Kelly as the diva, a larger-than-life presence with a strong, attractive voice and a warm nature that got across the footlights. André was the tenor Colin Ainsworth, endowed with more voice than stage presence. Stage director Tim Albery and conductor Robert Houssart played their parts smartly. The libretto was a joint effort by Wainwright and Bernadette Colomine.
            “Prima Donna” had opened in Manchester, England, then underwent revisions for the London opening this year, ultimately hopping across the Atlantic to Toronto for the Luminato arts festival.  
            Wainwright’s opera “Prima Donna,”  in French, through June 19, an element of Toronto's annual Luminato festival of arts and culture, given at the Elgin Theatre. Two hours, one intermission. For info, go online.
        ©Paul Hertelendy 2010
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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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