LINCOLN CENTER

Peter Jay Sharp Theater
Il Turco in Italia - Rossini

Juilliard Opera

We attend Rigoletto performed by Juilliard last season and it was wonderful.  This year's Il Turco in Italia was as good or better.

They are so young and so good.  The performance is first rate and they throw energy off the stage toward the audience.  The theater, the orchestra, the singers, the music make for a wonderful experience.

New York Times Review

MUSIC | OPERA REVIEW

Comic Complications Swathed in White Terry Cloth

‘Il Turco in Italia,’ a Rossini Romp by Juilliard

By ANTHONY TOMMASININOV. 20, 2014

Any shortlist of the most confusing plots in comic opera — and there is lots of competition — would place Rossini’s “Il Turco in Italia” right near, or even at, the top. That this daffy opera, introduced at La Scala in Milan in 1814, is such a tangle of romantic intrigue and overlapping story lines may be one reason it isn’t staged very often.

But “Turco” has a bold dramatic element that, if seized on in a good production, can make the opera seem a triumph of comedic ingenuity. This is how “Turco” came off in the lively, cleverly updated Juilliard Opera production that opened on Wednesday night at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, directed by John Giampietro and conducted by Speranza Scappucci.

The protagonist is a playwright who is under pressure to finish a farce but hobbled by writer’s block. In the original setting (a libretto by Felice Romani, adapted from an earlier work), the playwright arrives at a beachside Gypsy encampment near Naples, where he hopes to revive his creative juices. There, he finds a ready-made farcical plot in some people he encounters. In a “stroke of Pirandellian genius,” as the Italian opera scholar Philip Gossett calls it in his program note for this production, the playwright fashions a comedic tale before our eyes as we watch the goings-on with him.

In the Juilliard production, with sets by Alexis Distler and costumes by Sydney Maresca, the locale is shifted to a spa outside Naples in 1960, a place with white-lattice walls and a recessed hot tub. It looks so bright and inviting that you want to hop onstage and claim a poolside recliner. The Gypsies become a chorus of male and female spa attendants in matching red shirts and starched white pants.

With the playwright, sung by the suave, strong baritone Szymon Komasa, piecing the story together for us, suddenly “Turco,” with its ebullient and inventive music, seemed not just funny but almost followable. I think I have it straight.

Zaida, a sweet young woman, had been the contented lover of a Turkish prince, Selim. But her rivals convinced Selim that Zaida was unfaithful. So she has fled to Naples, where she works as a spa attendant. Meanwhile, Geronio, a well-off aristocrat, is anguished that Fiorilla, his flirtatious young wife, is continually inconstant. She has taken a new lover, Narciso. A Turkish ship arrives bearing none other than Selim. Fiorilla is immediately drawn to the prince, and the feeling is mutual, until Selim sees Zaida and realizes that he still loves her. Let me quit while I’m ahead.

Ms. Scappucci, the Italian conductor, whose education includes some years at Juilliard, drew energetic, stylish playing from the Juilliard Orchestra and excelled at performing on the harpsichord during the recitatives. Her accompaniments were a delightful mix of brusque chords and sly arpeggios. At 41, she seems on the cusp of a big international career.

The cast is delightful. The mezzo-soprano Kara Sainz brings vocal warmth and rich character to the role of the lovelorn Zaida. The soprano Hyesang Park’s bright, clear voice and impressive coloratura technique are ideal for Fiorilla. The lyric tenor Joseph Dennis is charming as Fiorilla’s current sideline lover, Narciso. Nathan Haller, another gifted tenor, is Albazar, Zaida’s supportive manager at the spa. Selim is the husky-voiced bass-baritone Michael Sumuel, a professional guest artist taking part in this student production. And my heart went out to Geronio, the duped husband of Fiorilla, as performed by the earnest, winning bass Daniel Miroslaw. In one scene, he and Selim, rivals over Fiorilla, wearing matching white bathrobes, start snapping coiled towels as each other, a locker-room brawl.

The production uses a scholarly 1988 edition of the score. Mr. Gossett explains in his program note that portions of “Turco” were farmed out by Rossini to an unknown assistant, and that various altered versions were performed during the composer’s lifetime. But that tale is even harder to unravel than the plot.