LOGAN — Most people do not imagine a night out to the opera as being laugh-out-loud funny and very enjoyable, however, Utah Festival of Opera & Musical Theatre delivers a fantastically entertaining and comedic evening with the paired productions of Giacomo Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, with libretto by Giovacchino Forzana, and Buoso’s Ghost, Michael Ching’s sequel. Directed by Suzan Hanson and performed with a live orchestra conducted by Karen Keltner, these two operas pair together flawlessly and defy the prejudiced contempt of seeing a stuffy boring old opera.
Gianni Schicchi is a timeless tale of a family who gets written out of a will and the lengths they go to forge another will in favor of their desires. The story is extremely relatable and funny today though it is based on the character from Dante’s Inferno, set in 1299 in Florence, Italy, and was written over 100 years ago. Gianni Schicchi was originally the third act of Il Trittico– a performance of three one-act operas by Puccini in 1918. The Il Trittico is rarely performed together anymore, and in preparing to produce Gianni Schicchi with the Memphis Opera in 1996, Ching wrote a sequel about what happens next to Schicchi and the Donati family. This fitting sequel flows well with the music and comedy of Gianni Schicchi and brings in elements of suspense and eeriness complementing the evening.
GIANNI SCHICCHI/BUOSO’S GHOST. Photo by Waldron Creative, July 2024.
Michael Ballam plays the role of Gianni Schicchi with masterful wit and charisma. Ballam’s playful high voice comically imitates the voice of Buoso and is done with ease. When dressing in nightclothes and crawling in bed with the deceased Buoso, Ballam portrays a confident and crafty Schicchi who plays the Donati family and the lawyer for fools by cunningly bequeathing most of the inheritance to himself. When Schicchi addresses the audience at the end, he questions his guilt for his actions if they were for the two young lovers. In performance, Ballam creates a likable character with charm and intelligence that is hard to condemn for misdeeds.
Balancing the comedic opera is the romance of Runuccio (Luke Norvell) and Lauretta (Emily Cherie Hansen). Norvell’s tenor voice resonated smoothly and powerfully when singing “Greatest in all the world today is Florence”. Hansen beautifully sang “O mio babbino caro” with flowing high notes filled with emotion and longing.
With the opera performed in English and not Italian and complemented with English subtitles, this show is easily understood and more relatable. However, some of the charm of “O mio babbino caro” was missing because it was sung in English and not Italian.
GIANNI SCHICCHI/BUOSO’S GHOST. Photo by Waldron Creative, July 2024.
Brian Nelson played the role of Buoso Donati throughout the evening and largely laid still on the bed without moving a muscle. While the relatives sang about poisoning Buoso with different foods, they climbed around on the bed and they playfully moved Bouso’s stiff body as if tossing a disgusting thing with carelessness and disgust. With zombie corpse-like movements, Nelson arose as if being pulled like a puppet on strings. Also, Ballam scared the family once again by speaking as if Buoso’s ghost had returned to haunt them for poisoning him.
Lighting Design by John A. Mitchell set a contrasting and creepy mood during Buoso’s Ghost with an eerie green spotlight on the bed and storm-like lightning effects. Costume Designer CeCe Sickler dressed the cast in fine clothing from the thirteenth century that would similarly fit costumes for Romeo and Juliet. Loretta’s gorgeous gown was made of beautiful red velvet with flow pink fabric and pleated sleeves. The elegant and expensive red dressing gown worn by Gianni Schicchi in Buoso’s Ghost helped symbolize the transformation of Schicchi from a poor peasant to a wealthy and important man.
GIANNI SCHICCHI/BUOSO’S GHOST. Photo by Waldron Creative, July 2024.
With only one set for the show, Set Designer Timothy Case created a vast bedchamber for Buoso that featured a large four-poster bed with carved posts and a large headboard. The room also included a large desk and trunk with a trap door. A large balcony set upstage with pillars overlooked the city of Florence and was a beautiful scenic backdrop for lovers Rinuccio and Lauretta to embrace. Oversized doors set on stage right helped create the effect of a large and wealthy mansion that Buoso lived in. However, as live theatre goes, just as the show was about to end, one of the large doors came off its hinges and almost came crashing down onto Ballam if not for his quick attentive thinking to catch it. It was quite a comedic ending to this fabulous opera and avoided a tragic ending.
Overall, the Utah Festival of Opera and Musical Theatre’s production of Gianni Schicchi & Buoso’s Ghost is extremely well produced and worth a trip to Logan. Seasoned operagoers will enjoy the pairing of these shows, and someone new to opera and skeptical of the stereotypical boring opera show will also find a night full of comedy and relatable laughs.
This review is generously supported by a grant from the Utah Division of Arts and Museums.
