Marissa Musings: Reveling in Ravel & Portland Opera

Monday, 04 April 2011 09:30 | Written by Byron

Marissa went to the opening night of Portland Opera's production of L’heure Espagnole and L’enfant Et Les Sortileges featuring my good friend, Carl Halvorson. Here is her review of her evening at the opera.

OPERA UP: “While the cats away the mice will play,” goes the old saying. In Spain it might be, “While your municipal clock working, watch-making husband is away, the bored, buxom housewife will play.”

L’heure Espagnole, a playful libretto which first premiered in 1911, is a lighthearted look at adultery that is sure to make you chuckle. Concepcion (Daryl Freeman), the wife of Torquemada (Carl Halvorson), the watchmaker, bides her time all week, waiting for that ever so special hour that her husband goes out to regulate the municipal clocks. This provides a chance for her young lover, the poet Gonzalve (Steven Bennfleck), to come over for a—pardon me—a nooner. But despite Gonzalve’s best efforts for romance, he cannot–pardon me–rise to the occasion (I feel her pain). Unfortunately for Concepcion, this seems to be the reason she was stepping out on her husband in the first place! Long story short: the old banker, Don Inigo Gomez (Nicholas Nelson) comes over for a romp and Concepcion eventually gives in only to be disappointed, not by the softness of his phallus, but the softness of his middle section (we’ve all been there sister!). The one man she failed to consider was Ramiro, the muleteer (Matthew Hayward), who she has been working to the bone making him move grandfather clocks from one room to the next while she gets busy (tries, at least). She finally realizes the strong, willing, capable, if not a little dopey muleteer is all the man she needs.

L’enfant Et Les Sortileges, also by Maurice Ravel, premiered in 1925. About a naughty boy (Hannah S. Penn), who in my opinion needs anger management classes, is sent to his room to finish his homework by his mother. Frustrated with what seems to be Algebra (I don’t blame him) he tears his room apart until he collapses on an armchair. The armchair then comes to life, along with all of the items in his room, to teach him a lesson he’ll never forget. He runs away to his garden where the trees and animals have the same lesson to teach. Ultimately the little misbehav'r realizes the pain he’s caused and the animals excuse his once violent behavior leading him back to his mommy. Although L’enfant was not as funny (not as many boner jokes), I was quite taken with the aesthetics of the garden. The moving trees come to life, the frogs come out, and the cats do somersaults. I give a tip of my hat to set director and lighting designer Curt Enderie and Don Crossley respectively. And big bravo to Portland Opera for giving us 46 years and counting of quality productions.