La Senorita Mundo: An Operatic Allegory
Composed by Njo Kong Kie
Written and directed by Kico Gongalez-Risso
Featuring Keith Klassen and Vilma Vitols
SummerWorks Theatre Festival
At Theatre Centre until August 16
By Matt McGeachy
Once again a festival show in Toronto takes the opportunity to remind us all that opera is not by any means a dead art form; of course, just living doesn’t mean it’s destined for greatness.
La Senorita Mundo has a lot going for it: a pretty decent story idea, a well-planned stage and lighting design, and of course, Keith Klassen, the tenor who enchanted audiences at the 2008 Fringe’s “Opera On the Rocks.” But what it has in its favour is outweighed by some big problems with the script and production as whole—problems that kept me checking my watch after the first 20 minutes of this 55-minute show.
Klassen plays Julius, a narcissistic over-40 playboy, apparently of some Latin extraction (hence the Spanish title), hosting a birthday party for himself. We, the audience, are his guests. The show starts off with a bang: snappy music and lyrics that involve the party-goers, Klassen jumping into the audience and chatting, giving us the opportunity to play along and have fun. Things take a turn when the mysterious party guest, who turns out to be the eponymous Senorita Mundo, arrives.
She refuses to tell Julius who she is, how they know one another, or why she is there. Unfortunately, what should be lively operatic flirtation between Julius and La Senorita, played by Vilma Vitols, lacks much sexual chemistry and the patter gets boring fast. Vitols is fine enough in the part, and had a colourful lower register, but was consistently outsung by Klassen’s powerful and clear tenor.
The real problem was the libretto. As the ‘operatic allegory’ progresses, it’s clear that this is some kind of meditation on aging and reflecting on one’s past life and deeds, both good and bad. Some of Vitols’ lyrics, however, were dreadful: “Remember the taste of your true love” in the seduction scene made me taste the vomit that came up in the back of my throat. (Harsh, perhaps, but only out of respect for the genre.)
Though doubtlessly the fault of librettist/director Gonzalez-Risso and composer Njo Kong Kie, the problem perhaps runs deeper at toying with too many operatic conventions. Opera is big: big voices, big music, big emotion. Making the subject of an opera more mundane than, say, doomed loved between Cavaradossi and Tosca, is perfectly fine, as long as you can heighten the drama to match. Opera is not about realism so much as indulged fantasy, and this lacked the necessary drama to draw the audience into the show. Often the combination of lack of sexual tension and the questionable libretto made for a slow scene certainly below the actors’ talent. If the show is to have a life beyond the festival, some serious re-working will have to occur; sometimes in life, we all just need more drama.
