The evening was both a good idea and a maddening one. The good part was that it provided a thoroughly entertaining introduction to Mozart's masterpieces. Witty director Drew Minter also tweaked the standard English translations to make them racier and more colloquial (``I'm hot for your body"). The singers delivered every word clearly, and the audience responded to what the cast was actually singing instead of reading the opera. For the veteran, the evening offered an opportunity to explore Mozart's varying depictions of a central issue in his own life -- and that of most people.
What was less satisfying was that we didn't get to see the characters develop or learn anything about themselves. And some of the internal cuts within sequences, especially the miraculous second act finale of ``The Marriage of Figaro," made for a bumpy ride.
Tenor Anderson is an engaging stage personality, but he sounded hoarse in his three roles and should have been spared the challenge of Don Ottavio's virtuoso aria from ``Don Giovanni."
The other singers were in finer fettle. Kaduce proved a lively comic performer as Fiordiligi in ``Cosi fan tutte," idly flipping through the pages of Cosmo, and as Donna Elvira in ``Don Giovanni," a virago wielding her umbrella like a sword. Then she was touching as the lovelorn Countess in ``Figaro." She has a blushing peach of a voice, but was too ready to sacrifice line and tonal sheen for comic effect. Gregory has a fine, strapping baritone that was most effective as Figaro and as the young soldier Guglielmo in ``Cosi" (his disguise, required by the plot, was a dropdead K. Fed impersonation). As Don Giovanni he indulged in some strange Draculaic maneuvers, as if he were trying to hypnotize his conquests. Rogers has a high, gleaming voice that she used delightfully as three lower-class characters; she was particularly amusing as Despina, the hostess of the snack bar at the tennis club, dressed in hiphuggers and pink high heels.
