Bedrich Smetana’s “Dalibor” is the kind of opera that companies like to present in concert.
With a gently ravishing score and a static, awkward plot, Smetana’s third opera benefits some from a composer’s name recognition even though the work itself has none. Why bother with the cost of a full staging?
It’s all the more impressive, then, that a new production at the Fisher Center at Bard College for the school’s SummerScape festival on Friday was dramatically cogent and musically satisfying. Doubly impressive given that it was the work’s stage premiere in the United States. A strong cast and creative team argued persuasively for the opera’s gleaming orchestrations and sumptuous vocal lines, and they even filled some plot holes along the way.
With a protagonist loosely based on a medieval, violin-playing nobleman from Czech history, “Dalibor,” which premiered in 1868, failed to resonate with Czech audiences who were looking for the nationalistic subject matter or folk strains of Smetana’s first two operas. On top of that, the work contains little in the way of stagecraft. Expedient plot twists and narration-filled monologues yank the action along. Romantic-era clichés abound: A woman redeems a righteous yet imperfect hero with her forgiveness and personal sacrifice, and they perish in a quick, Wagner-esque love-death that pales next to “Tristan und Isolde,” which had its premiere three years earlier.
The libretto by Josef Wenzig (who also wrote Smetana’s “Libuse”) spins a tall tale about Dalibor, here a knight, and his white-hot charisma. Before the opera begins, his dearest friend, the musician Zdenek, is executed, and Dalibor has already avenged his death. Milada, the sister of Dalibor’s victim, testifies against him, and then, utterly taken with his moral rectitude, immediately falls in love with him. But Dalibor is so preoccupied with Zdenek’s death that other characters, including his future love interest, barely register with him.
Graciously written vocal parts, touching if simple motifs and rousing choruses (deftly handled by the Bard Festival Chorale under James Bagwell) make “Dalibor” an easy listen. But the audience has to take Dalibor’s personal allure on faith: Smetana lacked Wagner’s ability to spin enchanting auras around godlike personae like Lohengrin or rugged, purehearted heroes like Siegfried. Smetana further muddied the opera’s love story by having Dalibor sing rapturously of Zdenek and tepidly of Milada.
The director Jean-Romain Vesperini cleverly tied together the plot’s loose strands. As Dalibor wallowed longingly in his cell, huge video projections of Zdenek (the actor Patrick Andrews), looking handsome and idealized, stood as tall as the proscenium; it felt like an Oscars in memoriam segment crossed with a sex dream. Milada, disguised as a boy and musician to sneak into the prison, wore the same blue jacket as Zdenek. Dalibor, in his dungeon-induced delirium, mapped one young man onto the other, making his desire, and the opera’s competing love stories, whole.
The tenor John Matthew Myers and the soprano Cadie J. Bryan took the lead roles on short notice because of visa issues with the original cast, and despite some restlessness in the parts, acquitted themselves nicely. Myers’s muscular sound, with more power than ping on top notes, and Bryan’s brightly reactive voice gave Dalibor and Milada a compelling vocal profile.
The vocal standout was Erica Petrocelli, who sounded marvelous in the secondary soprano role of Jitka, with a mellow, sweetly fetching timbre, flashes of brightness and elegant expressivity. With his flinty, mettlesome bass-baritone, which sounded a bit diffuse at its high and low ends, Alfred Walker effortlessly commanded attention as Vladislav, the king who condemns Dalibor.
The set designer Bruno de Lavenère’s double-helix staircase, draped in chain mail and accented with a spiraling strip light, was a dramatic and versatile choice for a revolving unit set, even if Vesperini sometimes veered into the tired device of height as an expression of salvation or condemnation. It’s a credit to Alain Blanchot and his mixed-period costume designs that medieval tunics and cowls blended with contemporary, cropped leather jackets.
The festival’s artistic co-director Leon Botstein, who marks his 50th year as Bard’s president, conducted the American Symphony Orchestra in a convincing performance, conveying the score’s genial spirit despite some stodgy textures. His zeal for operatic excavation is his true gift: hearing the potential in a dusty score, and then doing something about it.
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