‘Turk in Italy' sparkles

Soldiers dressed as nuns to seduce women. A silken ladder that allows all kinds of nighttime frolics. A barber who disguises his amorous friend as a music teacher. It’s safe to say that Gioachino Rossini’s comic opera plots often are as silly as they come, allowing his singers to show off their vocal abilities unencumbered by any seriousness.

“The Turk in Italy,” while it might look like more of the same, goes beyond the boy-meets-girl scenario, say singers from Tacoma Opera, who will perform the opera in the Rialto Theater this weekend. The show will move Tacoma Opera into more mature – and vocally challenging – territory.

“In most operas, you have boy meets girl, boy and girl find an obstacle, then most of the opera is spent trying to overcome that obstacle,” explains Tacoma Opera singer Bryan Hiroto Stenson. “Then they get married. This story is about the ‘and then’ – what happens after that.”

“The Turk in Italy” revolves around not two lovers but five. When the opera begins, Fiorilla already is married to Geronio, with the beautiful Turkish girl Zaida on the run from her former lover Prince Selim, who has falsely accused her of infidelity. Fiorilla is dealing with the amorous attentions of Narciso. She falls in love with Selim, to everyone else’s dismay. After disguises and a fake divorce, the couples eventually reconcile, after much impressive singing.

It’ll be the first time the 1814 work has been performed in the Northwest, says the cast. It’s a typical move for the local opera company in staging out-of-the-box chamber-based operas for the opening show of the season.

“Fiorilla and Geronio rediscover the love they once had,” explains Stenson, who’s playing Zaida’s confidant Albazar. “That’s a more mature comedy than most.”

“Selim and Zaida go through a similar thing,” adds Robert McPherson, who sings the rejected Narciso. “They rediscover what they had previously.”

The whole setup is constructed as a plot for a play dreamed up by a poet searching Naples for inspiration at the start of the opera.

“I’m like a puppet master,” says Chad Sloan, who plays the poet. “I create the very first Rossini reality show. It’s very complex.”

Rossini’s music reflects that complexity, says the cast. Unlike many classical opera buffa, which rely on arias by a couple of principals to carry the show, the plot only advances through complicated ensemble singing with interweaving lines. That, say the Tacoma Opera singers, is the challenge.

“Of any comic opera I know, there is no other that’s as consistently vocally difficult,” McPherson says.

“But (the ensemble sections) are really rewarding when we get them,” adds Sarah Mattox (Zaida) with a grin.

Then it starts to get fun.

“It’s a total catfight,” says Mattox. “By the finale in Act I, we’re just rolling around pulling each other’s hair. It’s like opera WWE for a night. I’m this short punky thing and she (Jennifer Bromagen, as Fiorilla) is this tall elegant thing.”

“Yeah,” adds McPherson, “it’s the only show I know where the soprano and mezzo fight over the bass (Selim) and the tenor (Narciso) loses out.”

Add in a costume party mixing Italians, Turks and gypsies, with the original Naples setting moved up to the frivolous 1920s in the intimacy of the Rialto Theater. What you get is a fun mix-up that only underscores the serious theme of the ending – that happily-ever-after love stories can, in fact, surmount problems and go on being happy.

“It’s a lot of fun,” says Mattox. “(For me,) it just sparkles.”

Rosemary Ponnekanti: 253-597-8568

rosemary.ponnekanti@thenewstribune.com

See the show

What: “The Turk in Italy” by Gioachino Rossini

Who: Tacoma Opera

When: 8 tonight, 2 p.m. Sunday

Where: Rialto Theater, 310 S. Ninth St., Tacoma

Tickets: $25-$64

Information: 253-627-7789, tacomaopera.com, broadwaycenter.org