Lamar Opera Theater Modernizes an Overlooked Classic

Friday, Nov 2, the Lamar Opera Theater performed a lively and inventive rendition of Joseph Haydn’s La Canterina in the Rothwell Recital Hall. Featuring performances from accomplished Lamar University student musicians Hannah Meyer, Caleb Seller, Colton Wright, and Christian Jack. The production was directed and adapted under Dr. Serdar Ilban, associate professor of voice and director of the Lamar Opera Theater for the Mary Morgan Moore Department of Music at Lamar University.  

The plot follows the story of Gasparina and her mother Apollonia (Wright), both of whom are formidable divas and con artists. Gasparina spends her days manipulating the hearts (and wallets) of her two gullible lovers, Don Pelagio, her voice instructor and source of financial support, and Don Ettore (Jack), the son of a wealthy merchant. But things get complicated when Don Pelagio (Wright) discovers the truth about Gasparina’s intentions, a discovery which threatens to leave Gasparina and her mother homeless.  

Haydn’s La Canterina is an often overlooked early comedic work from the composer. Even at the point of its conception, the one-act mini-opera was not intended to be taken too seriously. Haydn penned the work as an intermezzo, a short opera meant to act as comedic relief between the acts of a larger, more serious work. It is for this very reason that director Serdar Ilban felt the piece would be a perfect fit for the Lamar Opera Theater.

“With the resurgence of earlier operas coming back to the operatic stage I thought this work would be appropriate for our students who are mostly beginners,” said Ilban.

Although rarely performed, La Canterina has seen its fair share of notable renditions in the past decade by groups such as the London Classical Opera. But Ilban took an unconventional approach for the Lamar Opera Theater, deciding to modernize the work.

“My process with the piece started a year ago when I translated the entire work. In the process, I eliminated all the recitatives, sung dialogue in Italian. For a singer, this is not a skill easily acquired in the first couple years of study. So, since singing recitatives is rather difficult I took them out of their musical context and translated them to English in a contemporary manner. Modernizing the work in a way that would address the taste of today's audience and come up with a dramatically and musically cohesive piece,” said Ilban.

“So, it will be different from many other operatic performances. There is spoken dialogue in English while all the other sung parts are in Italian, which we translate and cast supertitles through a projector. This way the students are getting both the vocal training they need, while at the same time being exposed to acting. Most young operatic singers do not take theater or acting classes so this is their first exposure to it.”

Ilban believes La Canterina still has the power to entertain audiences, even hundreds of years after its debut.

“My touchstone always, especially with comic operas, is sitcoms. What is considered funny is always changing with each generation but they consistently have a similar structure,” said Ilban, “What comes out of the creative process is a mixture of your own limitation, the limitations of your cast, as well as preparing for the expectations of the audience. I think we have made something both educational for our students and entertaining for our audience.”

Ilban and his cast’s vision was realized at their Nov 2nd performance where the humorous tale of Gasparina’s and Apollonia’s greed (and their two victim’s gullibility) was received warmly by a packed house at the Rothwell Recital Hall. The vocal students displayed both impressive talent and a comedic sensibility that did well to deliver the enduring wit of Haydn’s farce to a highly receptive audience. Ilban’s modernization of the piece also proved to be a fitting, effective and well-designed vehicle in this delivery, highlighting Haydn’s themes while engaging the audience on a level a conventional opera would not. While many opera purists may argue the incorporation of dialogue as a means to communicate the plot’s entertaining twist and turns debases the work, Ilban and the talented performers of the Lamar Opera Theater could not offer a better counterargument with this performance. Luckily, no such puritans were in attendance and the show landed marvelously with an audience that happily absorbed a type of music they may otherwise miss out on.

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