West Bay Opera, led by General Director José Luis Moscovich, is set to present a fully staged production of Vincenzo Bellini’s 1831 La sonnambula (The sleepwalker), Feb. 14–23 at Palo Alto’s Lucie Stern Theatre.
Moscovich says that Bellini’s score “sits at the very pinnacle of the bel canto repertoire. It requires voices that can sing comfortably in the style: with great precision and ability to express, agility, solid but not steely high notes, and endurance. In addition, the chorus sings in most of the scenes. This is not an easy piece to put together.”
Considering that there have been only three productions of the work at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco Opera’s 102-year history, this will be a rare Northern California staging of an opera that’s almost two centuries old.
WBO will perform the opera in Italian (with projected English supertitles). Moscovich is slated to both conduct and stage direct. In the cast: soprano Michelle Allie Drever as Amina, tenor Chris Mosz as Elvino, and bass Casey Germain as Count Rodolfo. Also featured: soprano Shawnette Sulker as Lisa, mezzo-soprano Courtney Miller as Teresa, baritone Michael Orlinsky as Alessio, and tenor Arthur Wu as the Notary.
The sets and projected images by Peter Crompton are inspired by fairy-tale illustrations by Bohemian artist Artuš Scheiner. Costumes are by Callie Floor, lighting design by Danielle Ferguson, props design by Shirley Benson, and sound design by Giselle Lee.
WBO is offering a free preview at 7 p.m. on Feb. 6 in the Holt Building, 221 Lambert Ave., Palo Alto. The Sunday, Feb. 16, performance will be followed by a discussion with the cast and directors seated onstage. Tickets are $46 to $125. Group, senior, and student discounts are available.
“We are lucky to have been able to put together a cast that can deliver this piece as it was intended,” Moscovich says. “Drever was our dramatically strong Donna Anna with a shimmering coloratura in our [2023 production of] Don Giovanni. Mosz, [here] our Elvino, is a true bel canto tenor, trained in London and headed for a major career in this fach [voice specialization], having already been featured at the Wexford Festival.
“Germain, our Count Rodolfo, sang the role of General Perón in our production of Corpus Evita last season. He has a fantastic instrument, powerful throughout the register yet lyrical and expressive. So you could say that we’ve programmed La sonnambula because we can.”
As usual, Moscovich has dug deep into the background of the opera he’s presenting. “We’re working from the Ricordi critical edition vocal score, produced in 2009. That score does away with some of the late-19th-century edits, including transpositions of the tenor’s arias down to keys that were perhaps more comfortable for heavier voices but which take away from the excitement of the original writing.
“Our tenor prefers the higher keys. So we’ve been working on transpositions for orchestra parts that traditionally come in the lower-key version only. The extra work will be well worth it.”
As for the production, Moscovich says, “Though the original story is set in the Swiss Alps, there is no compelling reason to keep it there. We chose to treat it as a fairy tale set in a mountain village in a nondescript Middle European country in the late 18th century.”
WBO hasn’t cut back its offerings the way most performing arts organizations have been forced to do in recent seasons. How does a small opera company survive in these times, maintaining its usual (pre-COVID) performing schedule and continuing to stage ambitious productions with top singing talent? Moscovich’s response:
While many companies continue down the path of ְ‘modernizing’ opera so it can satisfy contemporary aesthetic sensibilities, we have been busy clinging to what we think is really valuable: the organic relationship between the libretto and the score.
This is at the core of why opera is so compelling an art form as to have been able to survive several hundred years. I often hear that patrons are ‘relieved’ to be able to come to our shows and see settings that make sense and productions that don’t fight with the score and its original premise. So that has been a surprisingly powerful motivator for patrons to continue donating to us. And we’re very grateful for their commitment.”
But Moscovich does see the larger threat. “I believe we are on the edge of a precipice as far as the survival of performing arts organizations in this country. We struggle with the same issues that everyone else in the performing arts has been dealing with since the recovery from the pandemic: lower attendance numbers, lower average contributions, sharp increases in costs, and a worrisome dearth of skilled workers who can help us develop our productions.
“It’s hard to find carpenters, painters, stitchers, makeup artists. Why? Inflation, rent hikes, and cost-of-living increases have chased many people away from the Bay Area. People are living in the Central Valley and commuting several hours each way into the region. To make it worth their while, we have to pay them more, and we find ourselves competing with other performing arts companies for the same people.
“We are also dealing with a relatively new phenomenon: people getting poached to work on parties, product launches, and other events put on by Silicon Valley companies that have a virtually unlimited amount of money to pay for those services. We cannot compete with them, and we cannot blame people for taking those high-paying jobs.”
What does the future look like for WBO?
“We’re still standing. We have a core of very committed artists and volunteers who truly enjoy being part of the creative process at WBO, and by keeping to a bare-bones staffing level over decades, we have avoided high overhead costs and positioned ourselves to survive. We can survive on very little.
“But we’ll have to see what transpires under the new Trump administration. Tariffs would certainly make things harder for us, since a lot of our supplies and equipment come from China. If tariffs trigger inflation, the effect on us could be severe.
“If the last 70 years are any indication, regardless of which party is in power, it is very unlikely that federal money will be made available to preserve performing arts organizations. Retrenchment may be the only strategy left to avoid becoming inviable. We have seen that in all major performing arts companies. We are looking at all the options.
“I wish I could paint a better picture, but that’s today’s reality for the performing arts.”
Moscovich has been general director of WBO since 2006. For the preceding decade, he was music director and conductor of the San Francisco Camerata, which was a professional orchestra devoted to the music of Latin American composers.
Trained as a civil engineer in Argentina, Moscovich received a master’s degree in transportation engineering from UC Berkeley and spent 12 years running the San Francisco County Transportation Authority.
In addition to his engineering studies, Moscovich also trained as a clarinetist and conductor in Argentina, studying at the National Conservatory in Rosario. Selected by the American Symphony Orchestra League for its conductors’ training program, he then had the opportunity to study under Lorin Maazel and Maurice Abravanel.
Recently, Moscovich has conducted productions at Opera Santa Barbara and Opera Idaho, in addition to his many performances with WBO.
