Opera San Jose's Romeo et Juliette

Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette

September 9, 2023

Opera San Jose

OSJ opened its 40th anniversary by bringing back R&J after a 17-year absence, and it’s a welcome return. The score is beautiful, pointing backward to Mozart, forward to Massenet, and despite its everpresence in modern culture (in both original and West Side forms), the story still offers poignant and infuriating moments.

The production is also the first that Shawna Lucey has stage directed since becoming OSJ's general director and CEO. Her work in this production immediately establishes the primacy of dance-like movement. This begins with a lengthy dance interlude featuring Antara Bhardwaj, Maansa Kavuri, Juan Magacho and SNJV, mixing balletic and classical Indian styles in an enchanting fashion. The choreographic feeling translates to the players, as well, notably Romeo, whose movements evoke a graceful, mannered feeling.

The cast is superb, beginning with our two leads. As Juliet, Melissa Sondhi introduces herself with the sprightly showpiece “Je veux vivre,” displaying a shimmering, agile soprano. Joshua Sanders exhibits an equally lyric tenor, and one can hardly wait to hear them together. Fortunately, the opera contains four duets, and Gounod delights in unison singing. The balcony scene duet, “O nuit divine,” is especially spine-tingling.

But these two don’t stop there. Both demonstrate an ability to take their lyric voices into dramatic territory, with tremendous results. For Sondhi, this comes with the fiery “Amour ranime mon courage,” the scene in which Juliet considers taking the friar’s death-simulating potion as an escape from her terrible situation. When Romeo discovers Juliet’s apparently dead body laid out on a tomb, Sanders unleashes his own surprising power and intensity, leading into the excruciating, tragic finale. The dynamic range exhibited by both singers is remarkable.

Not that the rest of the cast is wanting. Robert Balonek brings boisterous energy to the bawdy Count Capulet. Courtney Miller has entirely too much fun as Juliet’s scheming nurse, Gertrude. Mezzo Melisa Bonetti Luna shines in the trouser role of Stephano, taunting the Capulets with “Que faisto, blanche tourterelle.” Kenneth Kellogg lends “rizz” and presence to the Duke of Verona.

The center of the tribal conflict is represented by two veteran presences. Alex Boyer plays Tybalt with a powerful tenor and swaggering presence. Baritone Efrain Solis lends a dashing, comic aura to Mercutio, especially in the Queen Mab ballade, an gibe at his suddenly peace-loving friend Romeo. When the two fighters engage in their ill-fated duel, it’s a bit like a good pro wrestling match. Everyone knows it’s fake, but we’re all still a little concerned that someone’s going to get hurt. Romeo’s running-through of Tybalt is especially convincing (fight director Dave Maier).

The choruses, children and adults, are filled with energy, performing the village scenes with great exuberance (Johannes Lohner, chorus master). The choral reaction to Juliet’s wedding-day collapse is exceptionally powerful.

Steven C. Kemp’s set design offers some intriguing ideas: a first half of verdant spring driven by hate to the second half’s starkly apocalyptic vista: the ruins of a church lying in a nuked-out wasteland like a foundering ship. Unfortunately, the ivy-covered walls of the early going resemble furry Astroturf.

I had an equally hard time understanding Caitlin Cisek’s costumes, which were loosely medieval but not always flattering, particularly in the case of Romeo’s hobbit-like togs. I had a change of mind, however, when I looked into Cisek’s approach: she wanted each character’s garments to reflect whatever that particular person was going through in his/her life. Mercutio, for example, wore tight, athletic-looking clothing, forever prepared to participate in his favorite sport of swordplay. In the bedroom scene, Juliet wakes in transparent, lacy lingerie, while Romeo wears simple pajamas, reflecting both her sexual awakening and his adherence to sentimentality. This, along with many other elements, adds to a distinctively feminist reading of Juliet, who really was (especially for her time) a remarkable figure, determined to break away from the patriarchal strictures of church and family.

Joseph Marcheso gave his usual sublime reading of the score (apparently his first performance of this particular opera), wringing a maximum intensity from the many edgy scenes. Every time the strings came out with Gounod’s lovely R&J motif, I felt myself floating with rapture.

Through September 24 at California Theatre, 345 S. First Street, San Jose. In French with English and Spanish supertitles. Jasmine Habersham sings Juliet on 9/15 and 9/24. $55-$195, operasj.org, 408/437-4450.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 39-year opera critic and the author of 28 novels, including the acclaimed Mermaids’ Tears, available at Amazon.

Photos by Kristen Loken.

Raving About Tolstoy

 

Corey Bryant as Balaga

Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812

San Jose Playhouse

April 29, 2023

To quote that other highly unusual 2010s musical, it would have been great to be “in the room” when someone came up with the idea for Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. “Let’s dramatize 70 pages of Tolstoy’s War and Peace using Russian folk music, musical theater ballads and electronic dance music.” Sure! Why not? A dozen 2017 Tony nominations later, it would seem that the crazy idea worked.

The other meeting must have come at San Jose Playhouse, where someone asked, “What incredibly difficult musical can we do next?” With their nicely solidifying company of talented regulars, it seems this group can pull of just about anything. The result is a dazzling and beautifuly eccentric evening of theater, full of captivating imagery and music.

Paloma Maia Aisenberg as Natasha,
Juanita Harris as Helene.

The action revolves around Natasha (Paloma Maia Aisenberg), a young noblewoman whose fiance has gone off to war. The homefront conflict appears in the form of Anatole (Jared Lee), a swaggering young man determined to capture Natasha’s heart, despite his marriage to a woman in Poland.

At first the show doesn’t seem that odd - perhaps a few rock beats here and there, or the fact that some of the actors are playing instruments. Then Princess Mary (Osher Fine) delivers a dark, comic account of dealing with her aging father (F. James Raasch), and her father’s behavior causes her to be rude to her guest, Natasha. Forced into defending their respective turfs, the two women land on long, intentional dissonances, beautiful in their bitterness. (Ah! thinks I. This composer Dave Malloy is clever.)

Almost from that point, the show goes haywire in a delicious fashion. Anatole strips off his ornate Russian uniform to reveal stylish club-wear, the men get drunk at a trendy EDM spot, and the frustrated cuckold Pierre (Stephen Guggenheim) manages to survive a duel with the assassin Dolokhov (Nicholas Rodrigues).

Speaking as a novelist, this show is frankly what Tolstoy needs. When you strip out the endless ocean of mundane details and present the bones of the story with some kick-ass music, it’s amazingly entertaining. (Seriously, I tried reading Anna Karenina once and I wanted to throw myself in front of a train.)

Stephen Guggenheim as Pierre

The heart of the show is Aisenberg, gifted with an irresistible radiance and a gorgeous voice that sounds unnervingly (and not in a bad way) like that of a Disney heroine. Natasha’s impulsive behavior - the foolishness of youth in love - is balanced by Guggenheim’s heart-rending performance as Pierre, a man lifted from a dreary, beaten-down existence by an wayward bullet.

But there are stars everywhere. Corey Bryant delivers an adrenalized show-stopper as the crazed troika driver Balaga, hired to whisk the lovers away. As Pierre’s wandering wife, Helene, Juanita Harris throws in Patti LaBelle vocal flights when she’s not playing violin or leading Natasha astray. As Sonya, Annie Hunt tugs at heartstrings with “Sonya Alone,” a desperate prayer toward saving her cousin Natasha from a bad end.

Kudos to director Scott Evan Guggenheim for weaving all these crazy threads into a unified piece, and to Shannon Guggenheim for endlessly inventive choreography. As a drummer, I got a special kick from watching Jerald Bittle navigate an incredible array of beats.

Photos by Scott Donschikowski.

Through May 28 at 3Below Theaters, 288 S. Second Street, San Jose. 408/404-7711. Sanjoseplayhouse.org.

Michael J. Vaughn is the author of 28 novels, including Mermaids’ Tears and Lavender, and two plays, Darcy LaMont and Cafe Phryque. His titles can be found on Amazon.com.

Making Tosca Even Edgier

 

Adrian Kramer as Cavaradossi,
Maria Natale as Tosca.
Photos by David Allen

Opera San Jose, Puccini's Tosca, April 14, 2023

It’s amazing to see how a few seemingly minor details can have an enormous effect on an opera. OSJ stage director Tara Branham’s small innovations, combined with an energetic, blunt approach, led to a different and provocative Tosca.

The opera’s opening is usually a mildly comic back-and-forth between the sacristan (a divinely grumpy Igor Vieira) and the painter Cavaradossi. Branham introduces a young lady with whom the painter is having a tryst. This produces some fun “hide-the-girl” humor, but it also sends a major ripple across the storyline. Traditionally, Tosca’s jealousy toward Cavaradossi has been portrayed as a irrational, commemorated by the tender duet, “Mia gelosa.” This jealousy is also seen as the fatal flaw that leads to the couple’s downfall. Now, with the introduction of the side chick, it seems that Tosca had reason to be suspicious.

Another small addition comes in the second act, which takes places in Baron Scarpia’s apartment - which now features, for the first time that I’ve ever seen, a bed. Right there. Branham even brought in a couple of housemaids to replace the covers and pillows, as if to say, Look, a bed, right there.

Once again, huge ripples. Every time Scarpia mentions his creepy affections toward Tosca, and the extortive leverage he has recently obtained with the capture of her rebel boyfriend, there stands the end goal, the bed. Right there.

The overall effect of Branham’s approach is to remove whatever subtlety remained from Victorien Sardou’s play and just be right out front with everything. A despot who weaponizes religion to seize power and get himself laid? In an era when a President pays off a porn star while touting Christian nationalism and white supremacy, Baron Scarpia is a rank amateur.

This let-it-fly attitude seems to transfer readily to the cast, who perform with a fun, loose-limbed energy. This reaches its first-act peak with the Te Deum, the choir singing the sacred text as Scarpia paints graffiti all over it with his cries of lust for the hot soprano. The sound builds to spine-chilling heights, with the California Theater’s 1927 pipe organ rumbling magnificently beneath (played by Veronika Agranov-Dafoe).

Maria Natale as Tosca,
Kidon Choi as Scarpia.

Adrian Kramer gives Cavaradossi an unusual rock-star quality (most tenors being much stouter), that fits with the rapscallion angle. His voice has impressive weight (his first few lines feel almost baritonish) but this evened out as it rose to the upper regions. Not a spinto, but let’s call him a “luxury lyric.” He showed much art in moderating the big voice in tender moments like the lovely Act 3 aria “Oh dolci mani.” His “E lucevan le stelle” was riveting.

Scarpia is one of the more malleable villains in opera, and changes with the character of each singer. Baritone Kidon Choi brings a social stiffness combined with a fierce alpha presence. He spices it with a radioactive sense of danger, a la Darth Vader or Joe Pesci, as if at any moment he’ll cut off your breathing or slam a bottle over your head. Those around him - notably Joshua Hughes as his lieutenant Sciarrone - do some excellent reaction work, as if they are always one wrong answer away from the gallows.

And then there’s Tosca. Maria Natale is as perfect as you can get. Her voice has so many gears: the dramatic soprano who scream-sings at Scarpia’s attacks, the pure lyric who recalls better days in Tosca’s tender Act 3 remembrances, and especially the dramatic lyric who agonizes over her fate in “Vissi d’arte,” delivering top notes so rich and full you want them to go on forever.

Natale’s acting powers are on full display in Act 2, as Tosca negotiates the crushing conflict of trying to save her lover but not having the information to do so. (As Cavaradossi yells in pain from the adjoining room, a metallic band squeezing blood from his temples.) In understanding why this particular Act 2 was such a nail-biting, stomach-churning experience, I realized it was Natale’s ability to force the audience to feel her pain. She has a marvelously expressive stage-face that inspires deep empathy.

And then, the killing. Oh, what a killing! Tosca discovers the knife sticking out of the ham (the one the true Toscaphile has been eyeing since the beginning of the act) and holds it behind her back as she positions herself near the bed, seemingly ready to give Scarpia whatever he wants. When the Baron makes his creepy approach, she stabs him in the gut. As he falls to the bed, she throws the knife across his face and a stream of blood gushes out. Then she stabs him a few more times as he lies atop the bed. It may have been the best opera-killing I’ve ever seen. Bonus points to fight director Dave Maier.

You could feel the joy in Joseph Marcheso’s conducting, fully at home in Puccini’s lush score and leading the orchestra in an elegant, rich performance. Bass-baritone Robert Balonek gave a great desperate feel to the fugitive Angelotti. Steven C. Kemp’s set designs focused on tremendous period paintings in the church scene and a sprawling battlefield tapestry for Scarpia’s apartment. My favorite of Elizabeth Poindexter’s costumes was Scarpia’s black waistcoat with white embroidery.

General director Shawna Lucey’s tenure has been marked by some fun marketing ideas. The latest is a classic Tosca poster with a cut-out face so patrons can pretend to stand over the mannequin corpse of a freshly slaughtered Baron Scarpia. OSJ’s ‘23’-’24 season includes Romeo and Juliet (9/9-24), The Barber of Seville (11/11-23), Rigoletto (2/17-3/3) and Florencia en el Amazonas (4/20-5/5).

Through April 30 at the Caifornia Theatre, 345 S. First Street, San Jose. $55-$195. operasj.org, 408/437-4450.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 35-year opera critic and author of 28 novels, including Operaville and Gabriella’s Voice (available at Amazon.com). He is currently at work on a novel titled Punks for the Opera.

A Fun, Fine, Falstaff

Opera San Jose
Falstaff
February 11, 2023

Chanae Curtis as Alice Ford.

Opera San Jose’s production of Verdi’s final opera is a madly entertaining evening, thanks to a superb cast, a repurposing of Steven C. Kemp’s imaginative 2013 set design, and a high level of comic energy under stage director Jose Maria Condemi. All of which serves to underscore the brilliance of an opera that is probably not performed as often as it should be.

It all begins with our titular character, of course, and baritone Darren Lekeith Drone is perfection. He carries the big man’s great lusty presence, mints comic currency from his delusional confidence and problematic anatomy, and even makes us feel his pain, railing against the suggestion that he should give in to age and fat-shaming. (Coming from an 80-year-old composer, these are salient points.)

Sir John is assisted in his shenanigans by two able comedians, bass-baritone Andrew Allan Hiers as the lumbering Pistola and tenor Marc Molomot as the troll-like Bardolfo. Molomot’s exaggerated tremblings before his lord’s lectures are hysterically funny.

Chanae Curtis as
Alice Ford, Darren
Lekeith Drone as 
Falstaff.

The vocal delights are plentiful, starting with the potent soprano of Chanae Curtis as Alice Ford. Curtis’s instrument is lyric but strong, notably in the many marcato passages that run through Alice’s part (befitting her role as the female ring-leader). Playing Dr. Caius, the standard old-dude-your-dad-wants-you-to-marry, Zhengyi Bai exhibited a gorgeous lirico spinto tenor. Let’s hope he returns in some lead roles. (Bai also has the best costume, an elegant concoction of black andsilver from Sarasota Opera.)

The most memorable performance comes from baritone Eugene Brancoveanu, who’s always been one of my favorites but has outdone himself as Ford. Convinced (mistakenly) that his wife actually means to have a tryst with the bloated Falstaff, Ford launches into a full-blown tirade, beginning with the cuckold’s arioso, “E sogno?” The music swings into the language of dramatic opera and Brancoveanu dives in head-first, conveying Ford’s anger with a thrilling intensity, both vocally and dramatically.

The fullness of this anger pays comic dividends in the following scene, when Ford and his men ransack his house like FBI agents looking for classified documents. The genius stroke from Condemi is how Ford’s men go through every last drawer, throwing papers around like jumbo confetti, even though they’re searching for a 300-pound man who would probably not fit into such small spaces. It’s all completely absurd, except that papers flying all over the place is just really freakin’ funny. At the end of the scene, as they approach their quarry (which is actually Ford’s daughter necking with her boyfriend), they hold up their cabinet drawers like riot shields.

As masterworks do, Falstaff reveals more and more of its brilliance on further viewings. It may take until I’m eighty years old before I completely understand all its machinations. This time, the revelation came in a moment when the four female conspirators were hiding by the stairwell as four male conspirators gathered downstage. Each and every one of these eight singers had their own vocal line, going off all at once, and still, it all made sense, like a great operatic cantata. It’s as if, after eight decades of developing new skills, Verdi needed exactly such a many-charactered farce to provide him with the necessary challenges. It’s wonderful to imagine an 80-year-old artist so open-minded and energized that he’s helping to push opera into a new idea like through-composing, the erosion of the walls previously placed between set pieces (arias, choruses, etc.). (Compare this to your older friends who won’t even listen to a song recorded after 1980.)

Kemp’s set was placed into a stage-wide wine barrel, which gives the opera a certain Alice (Ford) in Wonderland surreality. Having seen a few conductors who lack this quality, I was struck by Joseph Marcheso’s ability to negotiate the space between singers and orchestra, particularly in a moment when he waited for soprano Natalia Santaliz to finish a long sustenato before cuing his players. This is such a valuable skill.

I truly enjoy the little accidents of stage business, and a scene between Falstaff and Mistress Quickly (Megan Esther Gray) provided a choice example. Gray’s top hat went flying off during an emotional passage and sat there on the floor as she (rightly) concentrated on her rather involved vocal work. But Drone found a moment in Falstaff’s blocking to return it to her. She placed it back on her head, and, a minute later, it flew off once more.

Through February 26 at California Theater, 345 S. First Street, San Jose. $55-$195, www.operasj.org, 408/437-4450.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 35-year opera critic and author of 28 novels, including Gabriella’s Voice and Operaville, available at Amazon.

A Female View of the French Revolution

 

Girondines

Wilmington Concert Opera

Composer Sarah Van Sciver and librettist Kirsten C. Kunkle have created a stirring, intriguing concert opera about six prominent women of the French Revolution, whose Girondin party aimed to curtail the spiraling violence spurred by the more radical Montagnards. (One of the more notable Girondins was American revolutionary Thomas Paine.)

Kunkle addresses the imposing morass of French politics by approaching at an intimate level, beginning with the good possibility that these six women conferred with each other on a regular basis. Van Sciver delivers these meetings with propulsive piano parts that convey the tension and terror in the Paris streets, while the addition of cello and violin add the feel of an 18th century salon. Especially in the early pieces, she works these meetings into conversational fugues, imbued with fascinating layers, harmonics and rhythms.

The primary subject of these discussions is Charlotte Corday, whose behavior since the Montagnards’ 1792 September Massacres has become more and more erratic. In her recounting of those killings, Corday reveals her plan to murder Jean-Paul Marat, the Montagards’ leader. Librettist Kunkle sings the piece herself, deploying a powerful soprano and a great sense for emotion and dynamics. Two of the top notes are so forceful and exposed that they will stop the listener cold.

Corday did murder Marat (“I will kill one man to save one hundred thousand,” she said.) She was executed for it, and the act itself was immortalized in David’s famed painting, Death of Marat. The repercussions of this desperate move fuels much of the opera.

Other intriguing pieces in the work are “My Dear Marie-Antoinette,” a musing by the queen’s favorite portraitist, Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun (sung by Tracy Sturgis), and “Bonaparte,” a comic jab at Napoleon by writer Madame De Stael, sung with great wit and enunciation by Raffaella Lo Castro.

Girondines is captivating enough as a musical creation, but it has the additional quality of making the listener want to re-examine the Revolution. It’s a remarkable  and stimulating creation.

Girondines is available on several platforms, including Amazon Music, iTunes, Spotify and YouTube.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 35-year opera critic and author of 28 novels, including Operaville and Gabriella’s Voice, available at Amazon.

Chutzpah and Genius

Sunday in the Park with George

San Jose Playhouse

December 3, 2022

“Writing about music is like dancing about furniture.” *

I would have loved to be in on that meeting between Stephen Sondheim, writer James Lapine and their producers, sometime in the early ‘80s. It would have been very “It’s a show about nothing!” Or “It’s a hip-hop biography of Alexander Hamilton!”

Or, perhaps “It’s a musical about a painting!”

You couldn’t have blamed the committee of angels for questioning the mental health of their artist friends. And perhaps it’s fitting, because Georges Seurat likely got the same reaction to his idea: using a gazillion tiny dots to represent Parisians recreating in a park.

For that matter, perhaps an element of meshuggeneh is needed for works of genius. Lucky for us, the angels wrote the checks, the off-off-Broadway production made it to the stage (with future stars Kelsey Grammer, Christine Baranski and Brent Spiner playing small roles), and eventually the show about a painting became one of the most esteemed works in musical theater.

Fortunately for South Bay theatergoers, San Jose Playhouse is just crazy and talented enough to take on this nearly impossible work, and to succeed with great flair. Just take the principal role of Seurat, which demands a vocal range from low baritone to falsetto alto, to go with Sondheim’s already-challenging arsenal of quirky intervals, artful repetitions and tongue-cramping patter. Fortunately, local treasure Stephen Guggenheim is up to these demands, and additionally has just the right bearing for the stern, obsessive artist. As imagined here, Georges can cruelly cut loose his lover one minute and the next playfully narrate the voices of his painting’s dogs, a goofy Labrador and frisky terrier. He also demonstrates an egalitarian devotion to his more blue-collar models and an utter dedication to his vision. Guggenheim covers all this ground with aplomb, showing Seurat’s great humanity and imagination.

The heart of the play is Seurat’s whimsically named muse and model, Dot, and here the match is absolutely perfect. Opera San Jose alum Julia Wade, returning from the East Coast to play the part, has the same red hair, fair complexion and clarion soprano that Bernadette Peters brought to the original role. Wade wastes no time in demonstrating her skills with the opening number, “Sunday in the Park with George,” which offers lightning-fast Rossinian patter. She rolls through them like a pro, and gives Dot a fetchingly naive, optimistic twist, no matter how many obstacles her artist lover throws in her way.

The figures in the painting also offer talents a-plenty. Susan Gundunas plays Georges’ mother and gives a poignant account of “Beautiful,” a grief-filled reflection on change. F. James Raasch plays distinct opposites as the oddly gentle Soldier and the brutish Boatman. Krista Wigle lends her particular brand of sunshine to Yvonne and the hugely amusing ugly American tourist, “Mrs.” (to Jim Ambler’s “Mr.”). Jackson Davis gives a particularly rich account of Jules, the older artist who dislikes Georges’ art but respects his talent and ambition.

The sense of ensemble - and the combined directorial skills of the brothers Guggenheim (musical director Stephen and stage director Scott Evan) - are on full display in the famed second-act opener “It’s Hot Up Here.” The painting’s immortalized figures take turns kvetching from their wall in a Chicago museum, and the sheer coordination is stunning to watch. Playing off a recorded soundtrack, the unmoving performers pass lines of song from left to right with the synchronization of a drill team. It’s not just brilliant, it’s also really, really funny.

Another kind of delight comes from the projections by Rick Frendt, Jon Gourdine and Shannon Guggenheim, which create the sensation of traveling through Seurat’s mind as the painting takes form. Later, the projections deliver a dazzling facsimile of the Chromolume, a more technological exploration of light and color developed by Seurat’s great grandson. I remember thinking, back in the mid-nineties, that the second, time-traveling act seemed gimmicky, but computer-produced art has come a long way since then, and the act now seems more relevant.

In the end, it’s still hard to pin down what makes this musical work, but Sondheim works do not come with easy explanations. The themes include the creative process, the idea that sometimes an artist’s most dangerous addiction is art itself, the curse of being ahead of one’s time, the conflict between love and the artistic life, and the desire to reach back through the decades in a search for ancestral connections. But one thing’s for sure: you will leave the theater with your brain buzzing, your eyes newly energized, and the lovely anthem “Sunday” rolling through your head like the green purple yellow red grass. The musical about a painting is just that brilliant, and so is this production.

Through Dec. 11 at 3Below Theatres, 288 S. Second Street, San Jose, $25-$55, 408/404-7711, sanjoseplayhouse.org.

*This is an ever-evolving quote, variously attributed to Martin Mull, Jackson Browne and probably Mark Twain. The furniture is my contribution.

Image: F. James Raasch, MaryTheresa Capriles, Stephen Guggenheim and Osher Fire. Photo by Dave Lepori.

Michael J. Vaughn is the author of 28 novels, including A Painting Called Sylvia, available at Amazon.com. He is also a painter, exhibiting occasionally with Works San Jose and continually at Philz Coffee in Campbell and Los Gatos.

A Fitting Cinderella

Opera San Jose

Alma Deutscher's Cinderella

November 12, 2022

“Act your age, not your shoe size.” – Prince

It could be that the distinct advantage of being a prodigy lies in having developed the skills to create works of art without the usual baggage of dogmas, nay-sayers and cultural strictures. Which is one reason Alma Deutscher’s Cinderella is such a breath of fresh air. Deutscher simply looks at the musical options available to her - be they classical, romantic or bel canto - revs up that awesome musical brain and applies them to her story. The resultant opera is unapologetically beautiful and vastly entertaining.

The only stumbling block going in may be the fairy tale itself, which has been done to death and, in this age of female empowerment, is not aging well (even Disney is ditching princesses). Fortunately, Deutscher seems aware of these issues and has responded with some intriguing innovations. The primary shift is taking the glass slipper that leads the prince to his quarry and changing it to the second half of an odd melody that Cinderella sings as she flees the ball.

This is nicely set up by the family situation. The nasty stepmother is a retired prima donna (talk about typecasting!), her daughters two budding divas, and they live in the opera house owned by her late husband. The lowly stepdaughter Cinderella handles the score reproductions and has shown some ability as a composer. Once Deutscher establishes the prince as a budding poet, we have the possibility of the two lovers being drawn to each other not through physical attributes but because of their talents and passions.

Another crucial key to the opera’s success is the composer/librettist’s sense of humor. She acknowledges that she’s toying with the classics in a Shrek-ian sort of way with anachronisms (“Triglycerides?” reads the minister from the king’s health report) and regular removals of the fourth wall. “Life is not an opera!” shouts the king, whereupon the orchestra fires up the love theme from Traviata, until the king commands the conductor to cut it out.

With help from the mighty Packard Humanities Institute, the production is tres lavish, beginning with the singers. The stepdaughters, Griselda (soprano Stacey Tappan) and Zibaldona (soprano Julia Dawson) are accomplished bel canto coloraturists, eliciting much laughter with their constant showing off (they’re comically bad because they’re actually really, really good). They both display great comic skills as well, Zibaldona as a constantly melting snowflake and Griselda as a bull in a china shop. As the stepmother, Rena Harms offers a soprano so cutting and powerful that it’s kinda scary. She seems to possess that Cruela de Vil combination of hot and evil, and you can see why she scares the bejeebers out of poor Cinderella.

Another fun ensemble is the king, bass-baritone Ben Brady, and his wildly nervous minister, Joshua Hughes. In view of the king’s failing health, the two are working hard to hook up the brooding poet prince, tenor Joey Hammond-Leppek, with an appropriate bride. Hammond-Leppek possesses a warm, strong tone, but also shows the ability to bring it back to touching pianissimos.

Soprano Natalia Santaliz covered Maria in OSJ’s recent West Side Story, which is a funny coincidence, because the meeting between Cinderella and the prince is quite similar to that of Tony and Maria. Santaliz gives the title character a hugely sympathetic presence, with a light but silvery lyric soprano. Her status as the only singer of color evokes both Cinderella’s lonely state and the recent travails of Meghan Markle. She’s also very good at conveying the darker side of Cinderella’s childhood, notably in the song “Beggar Girl.” The loveliest piece of music in the score is her duet with the prince while they’re dancing. Hammond-Leppek showed great care in bringing down his volume to match hers. Although her voice suited the character, it was a little bit lost in the larger production numbers.

The ensemble’s comic energy and esprit de corps was largely the work of stage director Brad Dalton. Steven C. Kemp’s sets were ravishing, with lovely touches like the carved doors of the king’s chambers and the stained glass windows of the wedding scene. The ballroom was stupendous, with a balcony that circles around like the prow of a ship. Johann A. Stegmeir’s costumes were impressive, notably Cinderella’s ball gown, which had its own entrance. I also enjoyed how the evil daughter’s yacht-wide gowns were played for laughs (and the stepmother’s red gown, let’s just say Rrowr!). Playing the fairy (godmother or not, we don’t know), contralto Megan Esther Grey received quite an upgrade from literal widow’s weeds to a sparkling wedding-day gown. Along with singers from the always-dependable Ragazzi children’s chorus, she provided a calming, hopeful presence.

The orchestra seemed extra comfy with the retro score, delivering a lush performance, and it was a pleasure watching Deutscher’s delicate conducting. It was the first time, in fact, that I had ever watched a composer conduct her own work.

It will be fascinating to watch where Deutscher aims her talents next. As much as I enjoyed her gentle twisting of a classic story, I yearned for more. I even envisioned one of the too-cartoonish evil characters, say Griselda, having a sudden attack of self-awareness: “Why the hell do I spend so much time and energy trying to impress these people?” (See Sondheim, Into the Woods.) In any case, I hope San Jose remains one of her regular stops.

The final act brought one of those nerve-wracking stage crises. A screen had latched onto one of its neighbors and could not be lifted to reveal the interior of the opera house (artfully painted to look like the California Theatre). Had Santaliz thought about it, she might have realized that Cinderella was, in fact, the housekeeper of said opera house, and walked over to shake it loose. It might have been hilarious. After a torturous sixty seconds, some brave stagehand finally snuck over and nudged it free.

Through Nov. 27, California Theatre, 345 S. First Street, San Jose. $55-$195, with special “pay-their-age” children’s rates, operasj.org, 408/437-4450.

Michael J. Vaughn is a 35-year opera critic and author of the novels Gabriella’s Voice and Operaville, both available at amazon.com.

Photo: Natalia Santaliz as Cinderella, Rena Harms as the stepmother. Photo by David Allen.