Oct. 22, 2001, 10:27AM
By CHARLES WARD
Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle
With attention centered on the Houston opera debut of the great Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, a native Texan stole the show in the Houston Grand Opera revival of Verdi's Rigoletto.
Having Hvorostovsky sing his first Rigelotto in the Americas was a coup for HGO and a testimony to the connections of HGO music director Patrick Summers.
But none of that mattered to Laura Claycomb, a European-based soprano making her professional debut in her home state. She brought down the house Friday at the Wortham Theater Center with her musically elegant and vocally thrilling performance of Gilda's familiar aria Caro nome (Dear name).
After astonishing clear scales in the brief cadenza near the aria's end, she finished off with a series of trills on each note of the final chord, climbing methodically but effortlessly to her high E.
Immediately, HGO's opening night audience let loose more vocal mayhem than it has in many years.
From then on the performance became a game of wait-and-see. Could one of the other principals best Claycomb? Hvorostovsky as Rigoletto and Italian tenor Roberto Aronica as the Duke of Mantua didn't.
In no way was the performance boring, though. The excellent cast and Summers' new take on an old favorite brought interesting and pleasurable listening.
Indeed, Hvorostovsky came here because of Summer's idea: treating Rigoletto as a descendent of early 19th-century Italian bel canto opera and singing.
So, Summers and the HGO Orchestra offered a light, transparent and gorgeously nuanced accompaniment that must have surprised many people expecting the blood-and-guts oomph of today's usual Rigoletto performances.
Yet, the musical ambience the orchestra created allowed all the singers to concentrate on the essence of bel canto sound -- lyrical beauty.
In that context, Hvorostovsky was a wonderfully adept singer. He colored words with great care, making his portrayal unusually rich and constantly fascinating.
He was handsome and dashing -- and, in the slightly perverse interpretation of director Frank Corsaro, a character even more troubled than in many productions.
At first he seemed the Duke's henchman in lechery -- leering, stroking and imitating sex in a way the Duke never did in public.
Physically, Rigoletto initially looked normal. But as the emotional stress of his precarious existence emerged, his appearance become more and more distorted.
Rigelotto faces two problems. He is trying to protect his daughter Gilda, now a young woman who has just come to live with him, from the sexual predations of the Duke.
Rigoletto is also haunted by the curse of Count Monterone, whose daughter has fallen victim to the court's debauchery. Rigoletto comes to believe that everything that goes wrong in his life, such as the kidnapping of his daughter, occurs because of that curse.
When the Duke, disguised as a student, woos Gilda, and his enemies deliver her to their ruler in the mistaken belief she is Rigoletto's mistress, he plots revenge. After that tragically backfires at the opera's end, he blames the curse of Monterone a final time.
Hvorostovsky was riveting in the give and take of Rigoletto's very public court politics and the tenseness of his private life. The duets with Claycomb were touching.
However, two important characteristics were missing from his portrayal: malice toward the members of the court and terror at Monterone's curse. The baritone didn't have the capacity in his voice to convey such dark emotions.
In contrast, Claycomb showed no limits. While singing so beautifully, she inhabited the role completely. The move from the innocence of her love for the young student to her willingness to sacrifice herself for the Duke was compelling.
Aronica's nonchalance as an amoral ruler was very convincing and he sang ardently. In most other circumstances, his performance would have been totally satisfying, but Claycomb's faultless technique showed how tense his top notes could be.
Two other key roles -- the assassin Sparafucile and his sister Maddalena -- were beautifully sung and acted by bass Raymond Aceto and mezzo-soprano Stephanie Novacek.
HGO used its very plain, unit-set production designed by Michael Yeargan. Corsaro's direction had numerous small touches that intrigued the eye. And, as has become a trademark of HGO, the men of Richard Bado's Chorus sang wonderfully well.
Rigoletto continues through Nov. 4 with one alternate cast performance (Saturday's matinee).