‘Aida’: Grand Opera in a small town

A review

By TOM KANE

NARROWSBURG, NY — There were no elephants. There were no chariots. There were no hordes of warriors. But all the spectacle of the Verdi opera “Aida” was still there, enlivening the stage of the Tusten Theatre on August 5.

“Aida” is not only the most performed Verdi opera, it is the most performed opera ever by any composer.

The Delaware Valley Opera Company (DVO) is producing three operas this season—“Aida,” Handel’s “Giulio Cesare” and Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”—but their productions are spread out across the summer in 15 separate performances. Quite an accomplishment for a community opera company in a little town like Narrowsburg.

Although it’s madness, there’s method in it. Previously, the opera company would put on two operas on two separate weekends—eight performances in all. So now, the little company that could is reaching almost double the audience it did before.

The author of the madness is music director/stage director/artistic director Ron DeFesi, an optimist if there ever was one, who pushes himself and his singers and stage crew to a standard of perfection rarely accomplished in a small community theater.

Here, then, is “Aida,” an opera on a grand scale—that is, as much as a small company can attain grandeur. The scale is not that of the stage of the Metropolitan or the Chicago Lyric but grand in its own right, nonetheless.

Verdi’s music is almost overwhelming, with DeFesi pulling and pushing his wonderfully balanced and resonant orchestra and lively cast to reach as high as they could.

To focus on one member of the cast and one member of the orchestra for a moment, the highlight of the performance for me involved Aida, the lead soprano Lillian Roberts, singing a kind of conversation with the oboist Josh Siegel in the hauntingly beautiful “O Patria Mia.” Siegel, who has been in the DVO pit for a number of years, is a mainstay of the orchestra, and his oboe is haunting, moving and exact.

Singing with Roberts were the crisp tenor of Ross Solomon as Radames, the wonderfully resonant bass Erik Kroncke as Ramfis, the lively Svetlana Furdui as Amneris, the solemn John Costello as the King, Michael Costik as the messenger, Elizabeth Herlitz as the High Priest and Timothy Lafontaine as Amonasro, Aida’s father.

You have three more chances to see this gem of the opera repertoire. To learn more about dates and tickets, visit dv-opera.org or call 845/252-7272.