By ANNA CREBO
CONTRIBUTING WRITER, Cape Cod Times, Aug 30, 2005

WEST BARNSTABLE - It's refreshing to see operas not drawn exclusively from the dozen or so perennial favorites endlessly repeated by some regional companies in the belief that audiences will not like anything that is unfamiliar. If this kind of reactionary attitude had prevailed in the past, we wouldn't have today's classics. Kudos to Cape Cod Opera for last weekend's production of two one-act operas that are perhaps not as often performed as they should be, although the composers are practically household names.

 

The pairing of Leonard Bernstein's jazz-flavored, but essentially serious ''Trouble in Tahiti'' with Giacomo Puccini's farcical opera ''Gianni Schicchi'' was an ingenious one, and both productions featured performers who had the combination of acting and singing skills to carry off their roles with panache.

Friday's program opened with the Bernstein work, whose main protagonists are said to be patterned on the composer's own parents, Sam and Jennie. (Bernstein's sister was quoted as saying: ''Our parents were mismated, mismatched, both interesting and good people who should never have been married.'') Baritone John Whittlesey excelled in his portrayal of Sam, a success-driven, egotistical, but essentially likable guy for whom family life has lost its appeal. Mezzo-soprano Gale Fuller was full-voiced (if a bit throaty) and emotionally believable as his wife, Dinah (Jennie in the original libretto), prone to romantic fantasies and bewildered by the failure of her marriage. Her lively rendition of ''What a Terrible, Awful Movie!'' (''Trouble in Tahiti'') and the tongue-in-cheek beguine ''Island Magic,'' performed with a perky, smooth-sounding backup trio, were performance highlights. The jazzy close harmonies and syncopated rhythms of the doo-wop style Radio Trio's often humorous musical commentary helped keep up the momentum of the show. Singers were mezzo-soprano Jena Eison, tenor Jason McStoots, and baritone Paul Soper. Stylishly snazzy, if sometimes overly obtrusive, piano accompaniment by James Busby was enhanced by tasteful percussion work by Don Holme, Jr. The spare sets, featuring a table and some chairs, while probably adequate for a one-time performance at a school, were much too skimpy for a weekend of performances in a theater, and leaving the kitchen tablecloth from the previous scene on what was supposed to suggest a psychiatrist's office desk was inexcusable.

 

''Gianni Schicchi'' was presented in a clever, updated-to-the-'20s staging by veteran opera singer and impresario Richard Conrad, who also sang the title role - one he has performed several times in recent productions in Boston and Portland, Maine. Schicchi is a clever shyster who devises a macabre scheme to subvert the newly deceased Buoso Donati's will, which cuts out his relatives and leaves his considerable estate to a nearby monastery. Reminding the irate relatives of the severe penalty in Florence for will forgery - hand mutilation and exile - Schicchi garbs himself in the bed-dress of the deceased and, assuming his quavery voice, he dictates a new will to the unwitting notary that also outwits the greedily quarreling Donatis. Wearing a bright yellow jacket with a colorful floral tie and sporting plum-colored shoes, Conrad cut a comical figure in the midst of the haughty, formally attired relatives. The tension and comic interplay between Conrad and soprano Martha Evans, as Zita, the disdainful matronly head of the Donati clan, provided some of the production highlights. Evans, moreover had one of the strongest voices in the cast. But relatives on the whole were characterfully delineated by the resourceful singers. Most memorable among these were Howard J. Whitmore as Buoso's slovenly, ill-mannered brother-in-law; Daniel Hague as the deep-voiced, rather pompous Simone, the eldest of the clan; baritone Daniel Kamalic as his fawning son Marco; and mezzo-soprano Jodi Diegnan as the impish, soccer-ball tossing Gherardino. Baritone Thomas Crumb was a clarion-voiced Gherardo and soprano Clara Sandler sang with bright, if overly forced, tones, as his wife, Nella. But the best voice in the cast belonged to Philip Lima, noted Boston baritone, who made a cameo appearance as Amantino, the duped notary. Hans Fritschi was the spectral, white-nightgown-clad Buoso, whose slack, lifeless body was tossed about like a rag-bag and eventually dumped in the bedroom closet.