Piazza challenges opera singers

In my 10 years on the entertainment beat, I’d never heard of Light in the Piazza until Opera Nuova cast it as part of the Vocal Arts Festival.

And with good reason. The vocal acrobatics in this neo-romantic classical musical are extraordinary, often too difficult and challenging for theatre groups to mount.

“In some songs, the melody you sing is not related to anyone else’s. There are huge leaps and you have to have a strong musical knowledge on how to approach music like this,” says Aaron Hutton, who plays the lead role of Fabrizio.

The young tenor, a voice major at the University of Manitoba, is part of Opera Nuova’s six-week intensive course. The 14-hour days provide concentrated operatic training in every theatrical aspect ranging from movement, poetry, text and acting to technique, master classes and specialized coaching.

The culmination is Light in the Piazza, sung in both Italian and English, scheduled to run June 9 to 11 at Convocation Hall in the Old Arts Building at the University.

Director Maralyn Ryan, founding artistic director of St. Albert Children’s Theatre, takes it a step further. “The lyrics are incredible. They are so far removed from typical Broadway rhyming. This is about thought, passion and it is articulated in a way that is very smart.”

Based on Elizabeth Spencer’s novella, the setting is the summer 1953 in the historically romantic cities of Florence and Rome. Two American tourists, Margaret Johnson and her daughter Clara, 26, are visiting Italy. When Clara falls in love with a young local, Fabrizio Naccarelli, 20, Margaret initially opposes the romance seeing only heartbreak in the future.

Clara has a mental disability. When she was 12, she was kicked in the head by a horse. Although her body has grown, she is still mentally 12 and is filled with the naiveté and joy of the young.

Fabrizio is love-struck and refuses to be dissuaded. “He is so enamoured with her beauty. He looks past the reality,” Ryan explains.

With a script by Craig Lucas and music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, it opened on Broadway in 2005 and scooped up six Tony Awards and toured for several years.

“It’s about love in different ways. There are bumps along the way, but it’s not superficial. Their struggles come from real places. It’s so relatable to people and so genuinely heart-warming,” Hutton says.

Traditionally the festival comes to a conclusion with two operas. This year Marriage of Figaro and Rusalka run June 21 to 26 at the Timms Centre.

Light in the Piazza., a dash of lighter fare, was added after organizers hosted an evening of Broadway songs several years ago. It was a major hit and attracted a new audience.

This year festival founder Kim Mattice Wanat opened the musical theatre door for the first time with what she hopes will become an annual tradition.

Accompanying the chamber operetta is a 13-piece live orchestra with music direction from Shannon Hiebert.

For more information visit www.vocalartsfestival.ca.