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| Charlene Baldridge Photo by Ken Howard
Divas and Intelligence
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Diva on Detour
In
a 2008 interview, when she was in San Diego to sing the title role in Madama Butterfly, soprano Patricia
Racette said of adding new repertoire, “I like a piece to feel like second
nature to me, rather than just servicing it.”
The
diva did that – going far beyond servicing the songs – Saturday evening (November 14) at the Balboa Theatre,
when she presented an entire evening of second nature songs in her outrageously
enjoyable program titled Diva on Detour. There
was not an operatic aria in the room. No one complained. It was like returning to her roots.
Racette was a cabaret singer in her youth and actually enrolled in college to
study jazz prior to turning to grand opera. She could could certainly be a
cabaret singer again if she chose.
During
the summer Racette announced that she is retiring Cio-Cio San from
her repertoire. (She sang the role very early, when still a student in San Francisco Opera's Merola
Program and then not again until 2002 as a professional.)
This season she
debuts three roles: Katerina in Lady
Macbeth of Mtsensk (September-October 2015) at English National Opera,
Ellie in La Voix Humaine (February
2016) at Chicago Opera Theater, and Minnie in La Fanciulla del West (July-August 2016) at Santa Fe Opera.
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| The Diva on Detour Patricia Racette Photo courtesy San Diego Opera |
Diva on Detour is Racette at her perfectionist
best. She intersperses songs by Gershwin, Hart, Mercer, Porter, Sondheim (and more!) with personal anecdotes (thank God a microphone is used throughout), and
devotes some time to songs made famous by Edith Piaf, performed in excellent
French. During “La Vie en Rose” she created severe electronic spine tineless by dropping the
microphone to her waist and singing the remainder of the song in her own beautiful unamplified voice, which seemed to come from ten thousand miles away. It was a moment not soon to
be forgotten. Amen and amen.
Racette
sang Mercer’s “Come Rain or Come Shine” to an accompaniment comprising Bach’s B
Minor Prelude (a la “Ave Maria”) devised by her extraordinary collaborator,
Craig Terry, who not only enjoyed the heck out of the entire program but
provided immaculate and sensitive support. Ah, what a blessing it is for a singer to be
accompanied by one who so obviously adores her.
One
of my personal favorites was “Guess Who I Saw Today,” in which a woman engaged
in a perfunctory long-term relationship spies her significant other in the darkened corner of a restaurant, kissing a new lover. Racette admitted she loves singing
about heartbreak, and of course she does it very well.
Her
ability to extend a final note, adding crescendo and dimenuendo, far exceeds
that of most cabaret singers. The tone, the enunciation and the interpretaton
are perfect, and the effect, simply splendid. If in a few instances a song
feels over studied, so be it. Forgiveable. My companion and I were delighted
over the sumptuous evening performed without interval in around 90 minutes.
The (curious case of the)
Watson Intelligence
at Moxie Theatre
Madeleine
George wrote both Precious Little – currently
seen through Saturday at Diversionary’s new Black Box – and The (cuious case of the ) Watson
Intelligence, which just opened this past weekend at Moxie and continues
through December 6. Seeing both in so short a time is edifying to say the least
and is a lesson in the scope of just one woman’s inquiry.
In
Watson, directed by Moxie Executive
Artistic Director Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, three actors leapfrog through five
eras in an exploration of human need, interdependence, attraction, arousal, love and lust, and
how these affect creativity and success.
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| Eddie Yaroch as Merrick Justin Lang as Josh Watson of the Dweeb Team Photo by Daren Scott |
The
cast comprises Jo Anne Glover as Eliza and Eddie Yaroch as Merrick, her
estranged husband, who has never understood nor recovered from her leaving him seven years before.
She is an inventor, and he, a cold, unfeeling industrialist. The plot, in all
eras, involves Eliza and Merrick and a mutable character named Watson (played
by Justin Lang), who is either a human being or a created sentient in each era.
Identifying which Watson one is watching is both the fun and the key that
unlocks George’s meaningful work, so full of language subtleties.
One
cannot conceive better casting and direction. Jerry Sonnenberg’s scenic design
makes flowing from one era to another as swiftly understood as the set of of
Lang’s face or the cast of his expressive eyes. Human or sentient creation, he
is scrumptious.
Watson’s
various guises are as follows: sidekick to Sherlock Holmes; the engineer/assistant who built and
tested Bell’s first telephone and received Bell’s first, plaintive and ambitious message; an
unstoppable super-computer that became reigning Jeopardy! champion; and an amiable Dweeb Team technician who fixes
Merrick’s frozen computer and is hired as gumshoe to tail Eliza, a task that
takes him as far as Victorian England.
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| Justin Lang as the flesh and blood Josh Watson and Jo Anne Glover as Eliza Photo by Daren Scott |
In addition
to Delicia Turner Sonnenberg’s sparkling direction, one of the keen listener’s
greatest delights is George’s repeated dialogue, phrases gleaned early in the
play that weave themselves throughout, sometimes emanating from other mouths.
Among the other delights are Desiree Hatfield Buckley’s era spanning costumes and shoes,
Christopher Renda’s lighting, and David Scott’s sound, all of which turn and
tick like a well sprung clock.
Glover
embodies the super-intelligent yet vulnerable Eliza, who is certain she
controls her fate, and then, not. Eddie Yaroch’s Merrick, despite his
manipulative, even ruthless determination to “keep” Eliza in no matter what
time frame, comes off as vulnerable, too.
By far
deeper and more insightful than any description of its tricks, the play is an
absolute delight.
See it at
7pm Thursdays, 8pm Fridays and Saturdays and 2pm Sundays through December 6 at
Moxie, 6663 El Cajon Boulevard, $30, www.moxietheatre.com or (858) 598-7620.
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