LIFESTYLE

Opera within Rochester's reach again

Daniel J. Kushner
  • If you go ... Finger Lakes Opera%27s Carmen
  • When%3A 7%3A30 p.m. Friday%2C Aug. 8%3B 2 p.m. next Sunday%2C Aug. 10
  • Where%3A State University College at Geneseo%27s Wadsworth Auditorium
  • Cost%3A %2420 to %2445

Chamber music fans in Rochester and the Finger Lakes can easily get their summer fix at the Skaneateles Festival and the Canandaigua LakeMusic Festival. But lovers of opera have had to make pilgrimages to Chautauqua Institution in the southwestern portion of the state, or east to the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown.

All that has changed with the arrival of Finger Lakes Opera and its inaugural production of Georges Bizet's Carmen, Aug. 8 and 10 at Wadsworth Auditorium on the SUNY Geneseo campus.

Under the direction of artistic director and Geneseo professor Gerard Floriano, the newly formed professional company will bring festival opera to audiences in collaborative partnership with the state university.

Floriano was co-artistic director of Mercury Opera Rochester before it closed in 2011, and last month was named artistic director of the Rochester Chamber Orchestra. He had also taught music for several summers in Verona, Italy, and it helped him see the possibility of making the greater Rochester area a summertime destination for opera.

Floriano wanted to capture the spirit of the Verona summers here in Rochester. When Mercury Opera folded, he went to Christopher Dahl, retired president of State University College at Geneseo, and asked for support to start what's now the new opera festival. The college agreed to lend its institutional infrastructure in the form of practice and performance venues, artist lodgings, and other logistical considerations.

"I had always wanted to do (summer opera) — we just never had the capacity nor the money," Floriano says. "I think the will was there, but the way wasn't there, because it's expensive. So we were fortunate — the college really backs us, because the college sees it as an opportunity not only to expand the reputation of the college but also to interact with the community and the region in a very positive, economic, building kind of a way."

That commitment has happened on many levels. One example: a rehearsal space at the college that had become uncomfortably hot. Appropriate campus personnel were called immediately to resolve the problem, Floriano says. "That's a big thing: making the company feel welcome and well-cared for as much as you can," he says. "That was a big thing that I learned from Mercury, and how to get that infrastructure in place before people come."

As for the production of Carmen itself, SUNY Geneseo students too have lent their talents to the cause — as interns on the crew and in the box office, as well as on the stage as chorus members.

Led by Floriano, the 36-member orchestra will feature regional professionals including members of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. This Carmen is an entirely fresh production created for Finger Lakes Opera: There is stage direction by E. Loren Meeker, who has worked extensively at Lyric Opera Chicago and Houston Grand Opera; set design by Laura Fine Hawkes; and original costume design by Theresa Ham.

"This is the first production, so our design is going to reflect that," says Floriano. "We're going to be contemporary, but we're also going to have a real connection to tradition. You'll see angles in our set design. You'll see modern costumes and colors and elements which are tradition-based, classically based."

Floriano says the cast also had to be top-notch, especially because its the first production. "These four singers — I can't say it enough. People have to hear them," he says. "I don't know that there's been an assemblage of vocal talent like this for the longest time (locally) ... some famous and some up-and-coming, but it's some serious vocal talent assembled on this stage."

There is mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges — a multi-year winner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions — in the title role of the gypsy woman who seduces the provincial soldier, Don José.

Bridges' singing is like "seeing Denyce Graves (one of the icons in the title role) at the very beginning," says tenor Gregory Kunde, who will portray José. "Take it from me, this is really important."

Rounding out the principal cast will be soprano Danielle Pastin — a frequent singer at the Metropolitan Opera — as Don José's would-be love interest, Micaëla, and baritone Luis Ledesma as the suave bullfighter, Escamillo.

This first Finger Lakes Opera production may be especially significant for Kunde, whose U.S. home base is in Penfield and who for years ran Gregory Kunde Chorale before his European career got too busy.

A titan of the European opera scene, Kunde last took the opera stage in America seven years ago, Floriano says. "I had always thought, 'What a crime it is that he's not singing here, somehow, some way.' "

This will be Kunde's role debut as Don José; he has focused mostly on the operatic works of Rossini and other pure Bel Canto repertoire.

"I was in full career when I moved here," Kunde says. "And I always thought that the one thing that was missing was an opera company that matched the cultural value of this city."

Kushner is a Rochester-based freelance writer and opera librettist.

If you go

What: Finger Lakes Opera's Carmen.

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 8; 2 p.m. next Sunday, Aug. 10.

Where: State University College at Geneseo's Wadsworth Auditorium.

Cost: $20 to $45.

For information: (585) 245-5650 or FingerLakesOpera.com.