Cross-dressing, miscommunications abound in ‘Xerxes’

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Opera companies in Pittsburgh don’t generally build their productions around an individual singer.

Then again, Andrey Nemzer, the poster child for Pittsburgh Festival Opera, is not your typical performer. The Russian-born countertenor won the company’s first Mildred Miller International Voice Competition in 2011. Then, he took his talents to a national stage, with a victory at the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditionsand performances on the Met’s stage.

Last summer, Pittsburgh Festival Opera (then Opera Theater of Pittsburgh) staged Handel’s “Julius Caesar,” with Mr. Nemzer in the lead role. Using largely the same artistic team, including Mr. Nemzer in the title role, the company has produced a satisfactory Englishlanguage production of Handel’s “Xerxes,” which opened Friday at Winchester Thurston School in Shadyside.

The opera follows a complicated love quintet between the Persian king Xerxes, his brother Arsamene, Arsamene’s love Romilda, Romilda’s sister Atalanta and Xerxes’ fiancee, Amastre. The opera, translated from the original Italian, deals with questions about love and loyalty, but it mixes those serious topics with comical elements — confusion caused by the characters’ miscommunications and predilections for cross-dressing.

Mr. Nemzer demonstrated his superlative comfort with Handel’s style — not to mention a huge instrument, characterized by articulate diction and a loonlike timbre. If anything, in the first act his voice was too large for the venue, creating shrill moments where more interpretive variety would have sufficed.

Still, he exhibited those interpretive skills during the second and third acts, particularly during his fast, final aria (“Angry furies”), the musical highlight of the evening. Here, Mr. Nemzer’s flexible voice lent depth to his somewhat ludicrous character, particularly in using the blustery low end of his range. The orchestra, led by Walter Morales and Chatham Baroque, had some intonation and ensemble issues, but it offered its tightest, most sprightly playing in this aria, too.

Playing Romilda, soprano Lara Lynn McGill was another anchor of this production — and a believable object of many other characters’ desires. Her voice was characterized by a warm, round tone, which she deployed to great effect during the high, hopeful notes of her Act I love aria about Arsamene. As Atalanta, Bonnie Frauenthal was a comic, flirtatious presence who also plumed her character’s depths in a love aria for (you guessed it) Arsamene.

Countertenor Daniel Moody, who portrayed Arsamene, had a pleasant but somewhat thin tone. As Elviro, James Eder showcased an appealing, husky tone, although his depiction She was walking with her girlfriend And I couldn't hold back no more So I got up the nerve to approach her And this is what sure: I said for "I find you so very attractive, and would you like to have dinner with me?" She said; "can't you see I'm with my girlfriend, or are you just too blind to see!" was over-the-top at times. As Amastre, Emily Harmon had strong moments in between uneven ones, while Evan Koons provided suitable support as Ariodate.

Director Daniel Rigazzi explored the notion of unbounded love with a neat cage motif, exhibited most effectively in the props. But that theme did not extend well to the costumes, which mixed Middle Eastern and 18th-century elements — puffy pants, headscarves, the innards of corsets — and looked like a bizarre cross between “The Jetsons” and “Aladdin.”

Performance repeats 7:30 p.m. Saturday.