Hershey Felder Presents PUCCINI Review — Grand Opera in An Intimate Parlor

Now donning the same mustache the archival photos always show was the favored fashion of this prince of the opera genre, chameleon Felder fits himself into the skin of Puccini, in a two hour biopic.

We meet him outside the doors of Puccini’s childhood home in Lucca, Italy, and soon we are looking out at the tiled rooftops of this walled city in Tuscany, just as Puccini the boy did, from an attic level window. Not much of a leap to imagine how this impromptu bedroom Puccini shared with his brother became the setting for passions to ignite when a seamstress seeks out a match from her neighbor poet in La Bohème.  With camera work evoking a dreamscape pentimento of that love scene between Mimi and Rodolfo, the voices of Charles Castronovo and Gianna Corbisiero catapult us into that love-at-first-sight fireworks moment. While Rodolfo sings that so famous aria  about Mimi’s small cold hands and gives his this-is-who-I-am-please-know-me speech, Che gelida manina, our world fades away.

From this opening La Bohème scene, snippets of Puccini’s greatest hits follow, carefully excised from the long scores to pick both THE dramatic moments in the story and best showcase Puccini’s genius.  Baritone Nathan Gunn and Ekaterina Siurina join in.  They take us to the moment when evil Scarpia aims to blackmail Tosca to sleep with him in order to spare her lover’s life, to when Madame Butterfly’s vigil to wait for the husband who abandoned her dramatically ends, to how we are sleepless (Nessun dorma) as a Prince awaits his fate in Turandot, and more.

Hershey Felder Presents Goes Beyond the Stage

No straining through opera glasses here.  No reminders of how it’s the opera-hall-NOT as one gets in even the best Metropolitan Opera Live in HD broadcast.  All of these scenes bubble out of Puccini’s parlor where Felder as Puccini summons the melodies from his piano.  In Felder and friends’ asides, we get snippets of Puccini’s biography – in some ways a story more operatic in scale than any he put on the stage—laced with adultery, murder, near-death experiences, rivalries and more.  Shunning words like verismo and similar inside baseball talk that stalks the opera world, Felder talks about Puccini’s aim of bringing human-sized stories to audiences who can resonate with characters they feel to be like themselves or those they know.  And, as in trademark Hershey Felder Presents fashion, musicologist Felder inserts a segue or two dissecting the music’s method.

For those of us who have tasted Lucca, Italy’s charms, Felder’s Puccini  is akin to the madeleine cookie that unleashes Proust’s memory with each bite.  It’s a city that in non-pandemic times offers tourists a daily concert rich with Puccini and Verdi arias. This is one tasty biscotti, in this reviewer’s opinion, transporting us simultaneously both to this historic walled city and the affect-exploding arias of Puccini’s creation.

This is a top pick for opera diehards and newbies alike.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

The Music of GIACOMO PUCCINI

With Libretti by Luigi Illica, Guiseppe Giacosa

Giovacchino Forzano, Giuseppe Adami, Renato Simoni

Selections from La Boheme, Tosca,

Madama Butterfly, Turandot, Gianni Schicchi

 

With 

NATHAN GUNN, Baritone

GIANNA CORBISIERO, Soprano

CHARLES CASTRONOVO, Tenor

EKATERINA SIURINA, Soprano

 

With special guests

RICCARDO CROCILLA, Clarinet

LEOPOLD FIUMI, young boy

 

Text by 

HERSHEY FELDER

 

Directed By

HERSHEY FELDER

STEFANO DECARLI

 

Production Design

HERSHEY FELDER

 

Montaggio

STEFANO DECARLI

 

Direttore Della Fotografia

DAVID BECHERI

 

Costumista

CAMILLA SACCARDI

 

Assistente Costumista

MARYSOL MARIA GABRIEL

 

Sound Design

ERIK CARSTENSEN

 

Operatore Steadicam

ANDREA ZOLI

 

Operatore Gimbal

STEFANO DECARLI

 

Assistente Operatore

SAMUELE VALENTE

 

Gaffer

EMANUELE TASSI

SIMONE SACCHETI

 

Elettricisti

SAULO D'ISITA

MICHELANGELO DA PONTE

 

Runner

MANOLO LASAGNA

 

Assistente alla Regia

SERENA MARIA BARBACETTO

 

Assistente Suono

JEREMY KALKE

 

Company Medical Testing

Dott. FRANCESCA FANTI

 

Assistente Produzione e Traduzione

SERENA MARIA BARBACETTO

 

Assitente Produzione

ISABELLE GERBE

PIERRE GERBE

GIOVANNI MORANDI

ALICE LASTRUCCI

EVA CORSI

TOMMASO BETTI

 

Case di Moda

TEDAVI ’98 FIRENZE

Paruruche e Barbe e Baffi

GHERARDO FILISTRUCCHI

 

Luci

FULL MOVIE, Firenze

 

FOR HFP

 

Stage Direction

TREVOR HAY

 

Sound and Production

ERIK CARSTENSEN

 

Director of I.T.

ANNETTE NIXON

 

Director of Development and Research

MEGHAN MAIYA

 

Director of Operations

SAMANTHA F. VOXAKIS

 

Il Padrino

JOEL ZWICK

A SPECIAL THANK YOU  - RINGRAZIAMENTI

I MUSICISTI FIORENTINI

Concertmaster, Ladislao Horvat

Riccardo Donati, Riccardo Crocilla, Alberto Simonelli, Alessandro Potenza,

Alessia Sordini,Claudio Quintavalla,Leonardo Cremonini, Emanuele Antoniucci,

Francesco Furlanich, Stefano Mangini,Marco Salvatori,Susanna Bertuccioli,

Chiara Su,Tobia Guerri, Alessandro Alinari,Andrea Tavani,Anton Horvat,

Alberto Boccacci, Corinne Curtaz, Dezi Herber,Elida Pali,Emilio di Stefano, 

Jörg Winkler,Laura Mariannelli,Marco Zurlo,Maria Salvatori, Michela Bernacchi,

Nicola Grassi,Patrizio Serino,Petru Horvat, Giacomo Rafanelli, 

Sergio Rizzelli, Stefano Rizzelli, Sara Nanni. 

 

Participating Organizations / Beneficiaries:

 

Berkshire Theatre Group, Pittsfield, MA

Central Massachusetts Jewish Theatre Company, Worcester, MA

Cincinnati Opera, Cincinnati, OH

CJE SeniorLife, Chicago, IL

Dallas Summer Musicals, Dallas, TX

DeBortolo Performing Arts Center, Notre Dame, IN

Ensemble Theatre Company of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA

Fifth Avenue Theatre, Seattle, WA

Fondazione Giacomo Puccini, Lucca, Italy

GoldStar. U.S.

Grippo Stage Company, Park Ridge, IL

Gulf Shore Opera, Naples, FL

Hartford Stage, Hartford, CT

Heron Agency, Chicago, IL

Laguna Playhouse, Laguna Beach, CA

Lyric Chamber Music Society of NY, New York, NY

Lyric Theatre @ Illinois, Urbana, IL

Nashville Opera, Nashville, TN

New Orleans Opera, New Orleans, LA

Opera Birmingham, Birmingham, AL

Opera San Jose, San Jose, CA

Peoria Riverfront Museum, Peoria, IL

Porchlight Music Theatre, Chicago,  IL

Rubicon Theatre Company, Ventura, CA

San Diego REP, San Diego, CA

Seattle Opera, Seattle, WA

Seven Angels Theatre, Waterbury, CT

Shot in the Dark, Champaign, IL

The Florentine, Florence, Italy

The Palace, Stamford, CT

The Town Hall, New York, NY

The Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts, Beverly Hills, CA

TheaterMania, New York, NY

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley, CA

What'sOnStage, London, UK

WHEN:

Thru March 21, 2021

WHERE:

Streaming On Demand

TICKETS:

$55

For tickets and more information visit the Hershey Felder Presents: Live from Florence website.

Images courtesy of Hershey Felder Presents.

This story has been added to the Picture This Post roundup article on OPERAS WE LOVE.
Watch this video preview here--