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2A few numbers — the ones that made you think, “Wait, am I listening to a full-fledged professional here?” — were breathtaking. There was, to take just one example, the duet from Act 1 of Verdi’s “Simon Boccanegra,” rendered with extraordinary vocal luster by soprano Caroline Corrales and baritone Eleomar Cuello. This is the moment in which a long-separated father and daughter are reunited, thanks to a helpful portrait of her dead mother. It’s a scene that can come off as slightly corny in isolation (the moment is irresistible in the context of the full opera), but the two singers infused it with a thrilling degree of theatrical and emotional vitality. Corrales boasts a robust and luxuriant tone that she deployed with unerring precision through Verdi’s demanding melodic lines. Cuello’s dark, vivid sound was a perfect match for her.
The first of Hogarth’s eight immortal paintings places the heir/naïf Tom Rakewell in company with his (Stravinsky’s) Anne Truelove and her Father Truelove. As Rakewell, Dongwhi Baek registered proper befuddlement in Peter Pearsian light tenor tones. That he retained his freshness through the long and demanding sing testifies to the security of his vocal training and his willingness to avoid pushing. He never tired, nor did we weary of his presence, other than to wonder sometimes about his enunciation. Frank Rosamond gave suitable gravity to the father. Ryan C. Goodwin costumed him in an all-black, vaguely doge-like outfit, which contrasted, as much as any color could, with the Snow-White outfit of Anne, whose traversal in the person of Caroline Corrales found fine focus, clarity, coloratura and lustre. Shadow Erik Danielson possesses a barihunk instrument which stole the show, as he showed a devilish advocate’s relish for the Rake’s seemingly pallid pursuit of pleasure. When he appears to tempt the penniless Tom, the drama is amped, and the transformation of country mouse to city mouse begins as he whisks Tom off to decadent London. And we know what happens when souls are sold for transitory pleasures.
