Glimmerglass Review: Francesca Zambello’s Curtain Call

In her final season as artistic director, she presents a comedic Rossini pastiche, ‘The Sound of Music,’ ‘Carmen’ and a thematically linked double bill of ‘Taking Up Serpents’ and world premiere ‘Holy Ground.’

Keely Futterer in ‘Tenor Overboard

’PHOTO: KARLI CADEL/THE GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL

By Heidi Waleson

Updated Aug. 16, 2022 5:21 pm ET

Cooperstown, N.Y.

Francesca Zambello’s final season as artistic and general director of the Glimmerglass Festival reflects many of the initiatives that she pursued over her 12-year tenure, efforts to lift it out a period of doldrums and turn it back into a must-visit summer destination. Repertory innovations included classic American musicals staged with full orchestra and no amplification; new productions of recent and classic American titles; and the commissioning of Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson’s “Blue,” one of the best new operas of the past 20 years. In casting, she tapped famous singers, such as Eric Owens and Christine Goerke, to serve as artists in residence, and went out of her way to hire and promote BIPOC artists. She hired conductor Joseph Colaneri as music director to get the orchestra into shape. She developed a Youth Ensemble, commissioning some wonderful new operas for performance by young people, and she expanded the company’s community reach with visits to Attica (the maximum-security prison), as well as lectures, concerts and other events. 

During the pandemic, she improvised: an appealing series of short films in 2020 and an outdoor festival, complete with specially built chalets in addition to lawn seating in 2021. A constant presence on the grounds, Ms. Zambello exudes seemingly inexhaustible energy and enthusiasm, and under her leadership the festival has, for the most part, done the same. 

Ms. Zambello has a populist bent, and the surprise delight of 2022 was “Tenor Overboard,” a confection devised by playwright Ken Ludwig, Mr. Colaneri and dramaturge Kelley Rourke in which lesser-known Rossini extracts were repurposed as musical numbers in a new comic script. Mr. Ludwig’s book is old-fashioned and a little corny—a 1940s caper on an Italy-bound ocean liner featuring two sisters disguised as men, their pursuing father, a male vocal quartet, and an egomaniacal film actress—but the music, along with slightly massaged texts, is so wittily integrated that it doesn’t matter. Musical selections—all sung in Italian—are as varied as “La danza” (a famous Luciano Pavarottiencore, here arranged for male quartet); the Act I finale of “L’italiana in Algeri,” an a cappella mourning ensemble from “Stabat mater”; and a buffo number from “Il viaggio a Reims.”

Jasmine Habersham and Reilly Nelson in ‘Tenor Overboard’

PHOTO: KARLI CADEL/THE GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL

The game young cast played the comedy with aplomb. The standout singer was Keely Futterer as the daffy Jean Harlow-esque actress Angostura, who knocked out the bravura “Bel raggio lusinghier” from “Semiramide” (a Joan Sutherland staple) with total command. Mr. Colaneri’s effervescent conducting kept the fun bubbling throughout. Co-directors Ms. Zambello and Brenna Corner did the same, dropping in sight gags like a wandering gondola and an octopus that flies on board during a storm, aided by James Noone’s playful set, Loren Shaw’s clever costumes, and Robert Wierzel’s heavily saturated, colored lighting. Good comedies are in short supply: This show would make a terrific gala event, especially with a raft of top-flight Rossini singers. 

Ms. Zambello’s championing of American musicals started shakily in 2011 with “Annie Get Your Gun” but has gained strength over the years. Memorable productions include “Carousel,” “Candide” (which is returning next summer), “Oklahoma!” and “West Side Story.” Ms. Zambello has judiciously seeded the Young Artist program with musical-theater-trained performers (who know how to dance) and for the most part cast music-theater specialists as principals when necessary. 

Mikaela Bennett, Nadia Buttermann and Michael Mayes in ‘The Sound of Music’

PHOTO: KARLI CADEL/THE GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL

This year’s “The Sound of Music” was sumptuously produced. Clever backdrops enabled Peter J. Davison’s rotunda set to look convincing as both the abbey and Captain von Trapp’s elegant living room and Aleš Valášek’s costumes captured the period. Soprano Mikaela Bennett was vocally assured and charming as Maria; baritone Michael Mayes made Captain von Trapp’s metamorphosis from martinet to human being convincing; Alexandra Loutsion was an imposing Mother Abbess; Peter Morgan and Alyson Cambridge were nicely wry as Max and Elsa, the show’s cynics. Young Artist Tori Tedeschi Adams was a fine Liesl and the six younger von Trapp children were terrific, a credit to Glimmerglass’s work with its Youth Ensemble. Ms. Zambello’s direction made the Rodgers and Hammerstein show seem fresh rather than saccharine, and hearing the score played by a full orchestra, conducted by James Lowe, was a pleasure. 

Michael Mayes in ‘Taking Up Serpents’

PHOTO: KARLI CADEL/THE GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL

Ms. Zambello has a mixed track record in recent and classic American operas. Standouts, in addition to “Blue,” were revivals of mid-20th-century works—Kurt Weill’s “Lost in the Stars” with Eric Owens and Robert Ward’s “The Crucible” with Jamie Barton. This year, a double bill of “Taking Up Serpents” by Kamala Sankaram and Jerre Dye(2018) and the world premiere of “Holy Ground” by Damien Geter and Lila Palmer offered contrasting looks at religion and parenting.

“Serpents” examines the toxic relationship between Kayla (the wiry-sounding Mary-Hollis Hundley) and her father, a snake-handling Pentecostal preacher (the dynamic Mr. Mayes). Ms. Sankaram’s well-shaped score, with its repeating motifs, eerie whirly tube interjections and full-on praise services, powerfully juxtaposes Kayla’s longings with her dominating environment. The piece has been revised since its premiere at Washington National Opera and given a fuller production—by Chloe Treat, with a set by James F. Rotondo III—that clarifies some elements. However, I was chilled to see that Kayla’s liberation from her fear appears to include a future in snake-handling. 

“Holy Ground,” by contrast, is an earnest imagining of a contemporary Annunciation: How might a new Virgin Mary accept the responsibility of incubating the Second Coming? A comic band of archangels—decked out in brightly colored satins and brocades by Trevor Bowen—deputize their youngest, Cherubiel (the lively tenor Jonathan Pierce Rhodes) to make the ask. (They’ve already been turned down by 489 women.) Their target, Mary (an affecting Jasmine Habersham), who is in the process of being married—in effect, sold to an older man as breeder—and wants more from her life, starts off a no but gets to yes. The score, which includes skillful vocal writing, is tuneful but conventional; the comic and serious elements don’t quite jell. Lidiya Yankovskaya was the incisive conductor for both operas.

Jonathan Pierce Rhodes and Jasmine Habersham in ‘Holy Ground’

PHOTO: KARLI CADEL/THE GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL

Glimmerglass was my third, and thankfully last, encounter with Bizet’s “Carmen” this summer, and the chaotic production by Denyce Graves, once an arresting Carmen herself, did nothing to mitigate the pain. As Carmen, the dry-sounding Briana Hunter undulated through sexy poses; as Don José, an undirected Ian Koziara seemed to think he was singing Siegfried; Symone Harcum’s vocal wobble marred her Micaëla. Bass-baritone Richard Ollarsaba (Escamillo) introduced some vocal richness; his eye patch, man bun and slinky suit also supplied some danger. Otherwise, Oana Botez’s costumes went overboard on flowered skirts; Riccardo Hernández’s bleak set, along with the bulletproof vests on the soldiers and a mystifying green jumpsuit for Carmen in Act 3, suggested some vaguely contemporary time period. Mr. Colaneri was the efficient conductor. For standard repertory shows, Ms. Zambello’s legacy is better served by the Native American-inspired “Magic Flute,” the commedia dell’arte “Barber of Seville” or, back in 2011, a “Carmen” directed by Anne Bogart that stripped this chestnut to its essence: a battle to the death.

Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).