“Better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all”

Critics and scholars consider Puccini’s romantic tragedy La Rondine (The Swallow) closer to comic opera, since characters manage to avoid suicide and murder and suffer only heartbreak. And Opera San Jose’s production blossoms with roses and sunlight and crackles with wit and laughter, reflecting much more life and joy than loss and sorrow. Heroine Magda (Jasmina Halimic), her lover Ruggero (Alexander Boyer) and her benefactor Rambaldo (Silas Elash) sing their way through a kaleidoscope of human emotion. Magda’s maid Lisette (Jennie Litster) who jokes freely with her employers and borrows Magda’s dresses for nights on the town, and the intrepid, clever, but clueless poet Prunier may remind one of one’s own dinner party guests.

Opera San Jose’s performers fully engage with the show, and we never see ‘wallpaper characters.’ The people in the background for each scene continue interacting and mouthing words to each other while the leads present the show’s main drama. Never loud or obvious enough to distract from the story, the others on stage add even more life to the production by carrying out their individual stories with the same focus and abandon as the leads.  We get the impression that, as would be true in a real-life party, Magda’s cocktail soirees and the Bullier nightclub play host to dozens of simultaneous opera-worthy stories.

Lisette’s spectacular failure at cabaret singing, even under Prunier’s dedicated mentorship, brings to an end one of these side plots, as she flees hisses and catcalls and gratefully returns to her old chambermaid position. If Puccini had created the opera to show this scene directly, it would not have been easy for Litster to convince audiences of her lack of vocal ability. She shows off the greatest energy and vocal range of any woman in the cast, with Halimic a close second. Rondine’s entire cast and orchestra carries off the music, including famed aria Chi il bel sogno di Doretta, with a rare blend of the technical proficiency of opera and the easy grace of a musical number.

The society and cultural climate where Magda lives does eventually force her to choose between love and elegance, pleasant cottage life and lively cocktail parties, dreams and reality, youth and maturity, Ruggero and Rambaldo. However, Halimic brings such dignity to the role, standing tall and looking both men and the audience in the eye, suggesting she would be able to survive and triumph in both worlds. Even while returning home to the compromises of her adult world, she acts from her heart along with her mind: sparing Ruggero his family’s disapproval. Even as a kept woman, she’s still a romantic to an extent and capable of love and consideration for others.

Halimic’s strength and grace, along with the entire cast, chorus, dancers, effusively decorated sets, orchestra, and conductor, smiling as he mouths the arias along with the singers, beckon us to join her in celebrating life in all its manifestations.

La Rondine runs at Opera San Jose through this weekend, May 9^th, and then the season starts again in September with Anna Karenina. Tickets are on sale now for the 2010/2011 season, and readers may click here http://www.operasj.org/home.html for more information.