Music Reviews : Verdi’s ‘Aroldo’ on Gold Medal Series

For its second annual appearance on the Gold Medal series at Ambassador Auditorium, Los Angeles Concert Opera Assn. put on an unstaged performance of Verdi’s “Aroldo” Monday night.

An intriguing exhumation, this proved to be a poor vehicle for displaying the talents of young singers who had been chosen from among winners of the annual Zachary Society Opera Awards Auditions, of which the association is an offshoot.

Verdi’s middle-period rewrite of “Stiffelio” (1850), falling between “Simon Boccanegra” and “Un Ballo in Maschera,” demands full-throated vocalism from artists of considerable accomplishment. The young contest winners recruited for this project showed clear and undeniable promise, but no achievement of the sort here demanded.

Nor did superior operatic guidance inform their efforts.

Conductor Anton Guadagno, scheduled to lead this performance, dropped out shortly before, ostensibly to accept a European engagement. And veteran basso Giorgio Tozzi, whose name appeared as “director” in the ads and in the program for “Aroldo,” told The Times last week that he wished the society, the association and the young singers well, but wanted to take no credit at all for the work of a cast he had “met only once.”

In the event, James Ruggirello, who every spring conducts the Zachary Society’s final auditions, led this performance. The soloists, their scores placed on music stands nearby, relied on gesture, facial expression and minimal movement for dramatic effects.

Some nervous and/or clearly under-rehearsed moments aside, it went smoothly enough.

A chorus of 34 from the Roger Wagner Chorale Institute (Jeannine Wagner, director) sang lustily, lyrically or mysteriously, as the occasions demanded. An orchestra of comparable size and quality read the exposing instrumental score gamely, avoiding grief much of the time. And the six principals usually performed with aplomb the complex arias, duets and concerted numbers in Verdi’s exigent and attractive, if not first-rate, score.

Brenda Wimberly exhibited a handsome and flexible soprano, reliable top notes and strong temperament as the ever-moping Mina, immediate predecessor in the Verdi canon of the “Ballo” Amelia.

Hers is not a role of dramatic contrasts, but its musical demands are broad and varied, and, except that its lines are sometimes written in the middle of the voice--where they can be covered by the orchestra--often grateful. Wimberly occasionally strayed from pitch, and at times chose to undersing; yet, for the most part she showed real promise.

As Egberto, father of the fallen woman, Kewei Wang produced attractive and consistent baritone sounds and well-focused, word-connected acting. Vocally gifted as well as histrionically apt, tenor Keith Ikaia-Purdy invested ringing sounds and articulate declamation into Aroldo’s many emotional crises. In supporting roles were basso Mark E. Coles, tenor Gabriel Reoyo Pazos and G. Brooks Arnold.