OPERA REVIEW : Donald Adams Brightens ‘Gondoliers’

Richard Sheldon, founding director of the 20-year-old Opera a la Carte, has taught us to expect minor miracles from his local budget Gilbert-and-Sullivan troupe.

But only veteran Savoyard Donald Adams, appearing as a guest, approached the ideal in the company’s new production of “The Gondoliers” Saturday at Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena.

As the Grand Inquisitor (a role that, contrary to local advertisements, he never undertook with D’Oyly Carte), Adams sang with amplitude and security. He also acted with wit and poise. He took snuff with exquisite relish, lingered menacingly over words such as “torture,” and hopped gamely with gout-hindered foot.

Adams contributed an authentic link with G&S; heritage. But it was reinforced as usual by Sheldon’s traditional stage direction of the principals, dressed in Leslie Tamarra Yarmo’s sumptuous mid-18th-Century costumes, amid David Barber’s attractive, semi-abstract cut-out sets.

Unfortunately, dramatic values often outweighed vocal ones.

Alison England, a pert Casilda, sang with breathiness and insecurity at the top. Patrick O’Donohue, an ardent Luiz, was vocally thin and reedy.

Sheldon was an adroit and vocally agile Duke of Plaza-Toro. Eugenia Hamilton, the Duchess, savored the spoken word but exhibited uncharacteristic pitch problems when she sang.

Perhaps opening-night nerves contributed to their dropping one stanza and repeating another in its place in “Small Titles and Orders.”

The two pairs of lovers proved handsome, energetic, but vocally weak. Mark Beckwith, as Giuseppe, offered sweet tone without strength. Kathryn Steward contributed a stiff and small-voiced Tessa.

Laurance Fee (Marco) burdened “Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes” with dark chest tone and ventured near high notes only with extreme caution, saving himself for the applause-generating last one. Kris Kennedy, a sunny Gianetta, sang with glassy, thin tone. The Opera a la Carte chorus did not always sing with strength.

Frank Fetta conducted the small, error-prone Opera a la Carte Orchestra with crisply and lightly but without lyric flight. He also allowed momentum to flag in linking dialogue and song.

A quibble: Sheldon over-employed the child Nicholas Fee (as the drummer boy). Even one of Fee’s flits across the stage was more distracting than dramatically enhancing, much less three.