Rice University’s new opera house is up to the task
Rice University’s new Brockman Hall for Opera is proof that attention to detail results in a firstclass facility. Better, it has that new-theater smell.
It took a little longer because of the pandemic (like everything else), but Thursday night the Brockman finally got a proper christening when the Shepherd School of Music produced “Don Giovanni,” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s dark masterpiece of deception and revenge.
Productions take place in the 600-seat Morrison Theater, which somehow feels both roomy and cozy. Three balconies ring the central cylindrical space, which funnels sound straight up from the spacious stage and roomy orchestra pit. Many thousands of dollars went into getting the acoustics of the room just so, and it paid off: A rag whooshing across the surface of the stage was audible from the Grand
Tier on the third level. Heavier props rolling on and off the stage sounded like thunder.
But more crucially, the sound is balanced. The orchestra did not overwhelm the singers, or vice versa, even during more complex numbers that entangled two or more vocal lines. All the musicians and actors seemed comfortable onstage (or beneath it), free of any opening-night jitters. The appreciative audience came ready to laugh and applaud. Largely unmasked, they were apparently healthy, too — minimal coughing during the performance.
Equally game and enthusiastic was the talented student cast under the stage direction of Vera L. Calábria: Dylan Gregg as Leporello, Rachel Shaughnessy as Donna Anna, Hidenori Inoue as Il Commendatore, Hayden Smith as Don Ottavio, Jessica Crowell as Donna Elvira, Madeline Lyon as Zerlina, Keaton Brown as
Masetto, and Mario Manzo as the lusty, swaggering Don Giovanni.
The same goes for the dozens more people who helped with the lighting, costumes, wigs and makeup, Italian diction, and other behind-thescenes duties that helped the production come off so smoothly. Under the direction of Timothy Myers, principal conductor and artistic adviser for Austin Opera, the 42-piece orchestra embraced Mozart’s challenging, often rousing score with aplomb.
As deep as it is wide, the stage was dressed with rich lighting and impressive production design, such as the graveyard statue of Il Commendatore late in the opera. Able to contain multiple mini-dramas at once, it makes a prime platform for shenanigans, and “Giovanni” has plenty of those.
Characters are often hiding, eavesdropping, masked, or disguised as another character.
Premiered in 1787, the opera is a thorough roasting of the concept of chivalry as filtered through the despicable prism of Giovanni, a satyr in nobleman’s clothing. (Any male character in a Quentin Tarantino film would kill for the robe he wears during the final scene.) The words of Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart’s librettist, still ring as acridly as when they were new: “The nobility have honesty written all over them.”
The local nobility who helped chip in toward the hall’s $100 million-plus price tag, though, have earned whatever good karma is coming their way. The Brockman is also blessed with excellent aesthetics: generous sight lines, walls of soft yellow and powder blue, plush royal blue seats that match the stage curtain. (Or is that Rice blue?) Despite its newness, it can stand proudly alongside the area’s more historic intimate venues: The Grand 1894 Opera House in Galveston, Conroe’s Crighton Theater, or Lambert Hall in the Heights.
Having the building open represents a definite, if measured, boost to Houston’s performing-arts community. Curious organizations owe it to themselves to at least inquire about its availability because the university sounds amenable to working with them.
And one more thing: When Rice Opera returns in the fall, please check it out. The Shepherd School students do great work.