Arts Alive San Antonio

by JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor —

Cautiously, more and more performing arts organizations are returning to live, in-person performances this spring and that’s wonderful news for performing arts lovers and the entire community.  No video can have the impact of a live theatrical performance where audiences and performers share the experience in the same space, just yards away from each other.

The latest to join the trend is Opera San Antonio, which will return to the Tobin Center in May with a new concert-style production of Lucia de Lammermoor, the romantic and tragic opera composed by Gaetano Donizetti in 1835.

“We are extremely excited to be going back to live performance,” said OSA general and artistic director E. Loren Meeker, “and we are one of the very few companies in the country that is engaging artists to return to the theater. It’s an extraordinary opportunity for citizens in San Antonio to experience… We reached the place where we are confident that we can return to the stage with wonderful guidelines in place to keep our audience and artists as healthy and safe as possible.”

Meeker pointed out that OSA’s venue – the Tobin – has been successfully reopened since last summer and both Ballet San Antonio and the San Antonio Symphony have performed live in that period, albeit with reduced audiences as well as reduced number of performers on stage. “We are in a unique position to be well set up to return with opera in May,” she added. “Though there are additional challenges with opera singers, we are fortunate to be partnering with the symphony to make sure that we do it, not only in a gorgeous and artistically wonderful way, but also in a really safe way.”

The story of Lucia de Lammermoor is based on Sir Walter Scott’s 1819 historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor, which can be called the Scottish version of Romeo and Juliet, as it revolves around two feuding clans and a pair of young lovers caught in the middle. And, of course, it ends in tragedy.

But for OSA, Lucia is an “extraordinary opera to produce right now.” Not only is it a gorgeous masterpiece of bel canto repertoire but it also lends itself to being reformatted into a shorter concert format, Meeker pointed out. The performances will last 90 minutes and there will be no intermission. “And we have really spectacular artists in all the roles,” noted the director with enthusiasm.

Soprano Brenda Rae will appear in the title role, with Scott Quinn as her lover Edgardo and native San Antonian Scott Hendricks as Enrico, Lucia’s brother, who wants her to marry another nobleman who can help save the family’s estate. All three are stars of the operatic world. Rae has been praised by critics for her “stellar vocal display,” “keen emotional commitment” and her ability to be both virtuosic and nuanced. She’s internationally known for her interpretation of Lucia. For Hendricks, this will be the first time to appear with Opera San Antonio, a special “treat” for local audiences. The other three vocalists are bass-baritone Musa Ngqungwana, mezzo-soprano Claudia Chapa and tenor Rick Novak.

For Meeker, who is also the stage director for the production, one of the fun things “to dive into” is character interpretation and how it comes to life with the text and the music through an actor or singer, she said. “Even in a concert setting, those discussions are a vibrant part of the world that we will create,” she noted. Stage projections will help evoke the environment in which the action takes place.

Interestingly, the last OSA show before the pandemic closed theaters was also a concert performance of a version of Romeo and Juliet, named The Capulets and Montagues at the University of the Incarnate Word. It, too, featured, several great vocalists/actors.

Since then, OSA has worked hard to keep audiences engaged, creating a variety of online programming and co-founding the Texas Opera Alliance to produce short filmed operas that were streamed for opera lovers across the state. “Innovation allowed us to still serve the community,” said Meeker. “But it has been a goal of ours to return to our roots and to get back into the theater. And here we are, a little over a year later, finally being in the position to start to do that.”
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Lucia de Lammermoor, May 6 & 8 at 7:30 p.m.; Tobin Center for the Performing Arts; tickets, $45-$135, are on sale now at tickets@tobincenter.org; 210-223-8624.