Lyric Opera Presents Rossini’s LE COMTE ORY Review

The piccolos seem to always be giggling…

Every time famed Bel Canto tenor Lawrence Brownlee hits one of the high C’s his title role requires — often at the speed of the fastest highways — prop butterflies on long wands held by chorus members are fluttered…

Mezzo soprano Kayleigh Decker in a trouser role of a page, Isolier, takes this fluttering one step further, getting into superman prone pose and shaking her hands and feet as Brownlee’s song soars to the rafters…

Then comes soprano Kathryn Lewek as Adêle, who dabs her décolletage with powder in sync with her coloratura sprints….

This is one heckuva fun opera, with merriment sized appropriately for the opera hall! As soon as Adêle’s brother rides off to the Crusades, Le Comte Ory’s rake antics begin. What better way to get the maidens and wives wallowing without their husbands-off-to-the-Crusades than to dress as a Holy Man doling out licentious wisdom to the lonely. Even better, get very close to Adêle’s bed by masquerading as a nun abused by that lecher Ory himself so that he as she will be pitied and taken into Adêle’s castle. It’s not just Ory but also his men, all garbed as pious nuns, though some quite bearded. The disguises work until they find the wine cellar to give us one of many famous drinking songs in the opera repertoire. In this reviewer’s opinion, this confection of coloratura and roulade vocal hijinks seasoned with slapstick is a pure delight.

(SPOILER ALERT: We even get a ménage à trois when Ory gets his comeuppance of rolling about with his page in the dark, thinking it was Adêle.)

Lyric Opera Presents Rossini’s ONLY French Opera

We learn from the pre-performance lecture by musicologist Elinor Olin that this is Rossini’s only French opera, and the program notes make much of the difficulties this afforded Rossini compared to the ease of scoring songs for the Italian tongue. That may be true, but the composer sure zeroes in on how the French oui can have the sound of pure comedy — one of many musical gag lines that permeate the libretto and score meld! This writer says get your LOL muscles ready and expect memorable performances from the entire cast. Le Comte Ory is not to be missed.