Performed by the New York City Opera at the New York State Theater. THE STUDENT PRINCE Operetta in a prologue and three acts by Sigmund Romberg, libretto by Dorothy Donnelly, book adaptation by Hugh Wheeler conductor, Scott Bergeson production by Jack Hofsiss stage director, Christian Smith choreographer, Donald Saddler choreography restaged by Jessica Redel sets by David Jenkins costumes by Patton Campbell lighting by Gilbert V. He kept the City Opera's pit orchestra in good spirits and his stage ensemble reasonably well together. Elsewhere, Michele McBride, Jeff Mattsey, Joseph McKee, Sandra Ruggles and a number of strong male solo voices stepping in and out of the chorus generated impressions of vocal health in its youthful prime. Engel looked suspiciously hulking and robust but sang amiably enough. The tendency to drag out punch lines past their inherent capacity to have effect made this onlooker squirm.Īs a heart patient headed toward death, Louis Otey's Dr.

James Billings (Lutz) and Muriel Costa-Greenspon (Grand Duchess Anastasia) are entrusted with comic relief, and - to these perhaps impatient eyes and ears - both seem a little too pleased with their capacity to amuse.

She is, in any case, an attractive presence. Patzakis's diligence in matters of articulation is sometimes admirable, sometimes self-conscious. The voice has a dark, handsome quality interrupted occasionally by rough patches. Michele Patzakis made her debut as Kathie. His tenor is light, clear, a little frail and delivered unaffectedly.

We are brought within touching distance of what moments before had seemed a remote artifact.Īs Prince Karl Franz, Michael Rees Davis is an excellent advertisement for the rightness of this production. 'Overhead the Moon Is Beaming' and 'Golden Days' are irresistible and while they are in progress, critical faculties, doubts and questions quite correctly melt away. If the last act seems abrupt and undeveloped, that is the way Romberg, Dorothy Donnelly and Hugh Wheeler made it.Īll of this is moot when 'The Student Prince' sings at its best. When the dialogue is wooden and the wit remote to modern ears, no attempt to rescue them is made. The costumes by Patton Campbell are the fantasies from which illustrated story books and travel brochures are made. We know that principals will leap on top of tables, chairs and benches to deliver their climactic moments, and we would be disappointed if they didn't.ĭavid Jenkins's sets - a Heidelberg inn and its cut-out interior, then a darkly palatial garden of shrubs and statuary - are convincing without trying overly to impress. Marching students and waltzing ballgoers put their faith in an established genre of stage presentation they manage it with considerable skill and unalloyed enthusiasm. Christian Smith, in charge this season of the Jack Hofsiss production, does not smirk. The face has been scrubbed clean and a genuine smile affixed. So this is a 'Student Prince' at face value.

What it offered City Opera patrons on Saturday - and will continue to offer in a near-unbroken two-week string of performances continuing tomorrow night - is yearning doubled and once removed: a nostalgia for an earlier nostalgia that was powerful enough to keep the original production going for 608 performances. Even at its conception, this tale of royal heartbreak in old Heidelberg pined for a fanciful and romantic past. The distance between us in 1993 and Sigmund Romberg in the early 1920's is more than a matter of 70 years. How is one to present 'The Student Prince'? Perhaps just as the New York City Opera did on Saturday night: respectful of its sentimentality, alert to its occasional beauties, happy to leave success or failure in the hands of an audience that will inevitably waver between uncritical embrace and guarded contempt.

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