UFO rolls a winner on opening day

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Logan » Utah Festival Opera bypassed its traditional preview week, jump-starting the 2010 season by placing productions immediately in repertory. An opera matinee and an evening Broadway musical opened the season Thursday.

"The Barber of Seville"

Rossini's 1816 operatic farce, sung in Italian with projected English titles, was a hilarious romp under Daniel Helfgot's creative stage direction and Barbara Day Turner's enlightened baton.

The curtain opened on a sunny Mediterranean villa designed by Dennis Hassan for UFO's 2001 production and enhanced with turntable mobility this year by Jim Lyden. The set rotated between exterior and interior scenes, no more dramatically than during a storm sequence when the villa whirled amidst thunder, lightning and struggling wind-blown characters with sprung umbrellas.

This mesmerizing stagecraft was echoed by a first-rate cast. New York baritone Kyle Pfortmiller gave a bravura performance in the role of Figaro. His bronzed tone rattled the rafters during "Largo al factotum" and shocked the audience during the aria's most tongue-twisting passage with a special talent that should remain a surprise. Mischievous, playfully narcissistic and always one step ahead or the rest, his charismatic presence enhanced every scene.

Figaro helps Count Almaviva (tenor Jordan Bluth) win the affections of Rosina (mezzo-soprano Millinee Bannister) and free her from the clutches of Doctor Bartolo (bass Stephanos Tsirakoglou), her guardian who has designs to marry her himself. Bluth and Bannister displayed glorious technique during difficult runs, but Bluth's top notes sounded occasionally fragile.

Tsirakoglou was formidable and buffoonish, nearly stealing the show with his own rapid-fire aria, "Un dottor della mia sorte," along with plenty of Act Two mischief.

Kevin Nakatani's comical Don Basilio sported a surprisingly booming bass coming from a willowy body. His character's eccentric look and behavior added to the list of revelations seen at the show's every turn.

An orchestra of musicians from around the country provided a descriptive and crisply executed performance, giving the famous overture a singular vitality.

"Guys and Dolls"

The centennial of Frank Loesser's birth occasioned a celebratory nod from UFO General Director Michael Ballam with the composer's 1950 Broadway hit "Guys and Dolls."

Director Valerie Rachelle and set designer Robert Little moved the action -- originally set in Depression-era New York City among gamblers, crooks, cops, drunks and street missionaries -- ahead to the decade of the show's premiere. Manhattan's colorful Time's Square lights and signs were given a blurred, washed look, suggesting a Neo-Impressionistic style. Conductor Karen Keltner led an orchestra heavy on woodwinds and brass that created a swinging Big Band sound with plenty of hot trumpet licks and wailing saxophones.

The plot follows two couples and their relationship conflicts. Perennially single Nathan Detroit, played by baritone Kyle Pfortmiller -- who hours earlier played Figaro in "The Barber of Seville" -- is dodging police, trying to find a place to hold a craps game. His fiancée of 14 years, Miss Adelaide, is wittily characterized by Carianne Wrona. A showgirl suffering from a psychosomatic allergy because of her unwed state, she pressures Detroit to marry her and quit gambling.

Sky Masterson, played with suave confidence by Mark Womack, is a high roller who falls in love with Sarah Brown, a pious street missionary played by Vanessa Ballam. After a "sure thing" bet with Detroit backfires, Sarah thinks she has been used and refuses to have anything to do with Sky.

Womack's second-act show-stopper, "Luck Be a Lady Tonight," was dazzling. Set in a sewer with dancing gamblers and a visiting Chicago mob boss, the athletic movement was choreographed by Michell Burns. W. Lee Daily as Detroit's cloying friend, Nicely-Nicely Johnson, was a standout.

The show even had roles for Ballam's real-life father and brother -- Michael Ballam as Sarah's father, Arvide, and Ben Ballam as Junior.

Most of the talented cast honed credible street accents from various New York boroughs.

Costumes designed by Crystal Herman, Chad Bonaker's lighting and Patrick Calhoun's sound design created a visual and auditory feast.

The smooth opening-day productions bode well for another successful festival in Cache Valley's inviting surroundings.