Wolf Trap Performing Arts Center is located in rural Virginia and this summer 1974 performance of Donizetti's comic opera stars Beverly Sills, who at this time had garnered fame and success as one of the few American opera singers to make it big. This was originally a French comic opera but it has been cleverly written in English. Beverly Sills shines as she conjures Lucile Ball's spirit to portray the lovable, tomboyish orphan who is adopted by a Napoleonic army. She has a genuinely good time playing this role, and she sings beautifully, with stupendous high notes and lyric pianissimi. Her co-stars- tenor William McDonald, baritone Spiro Malas and mezzo-soprano Muriel Costa-Greenspoon, are terrific in their respective roles. Mcdonald is no Pavarotti (who was the better Tonio) but he is cute and sings with elegance and charm, portraying Marie's boyfriend as a kind of lovable goof. Spiro Malas is hilarious as the grumbling and fatherly Captain Sulpice. Muriel Greenspoon plays the part of the Marquise as a joke of a bourgeois woman. Marie's Singing Lesson is sheer comedy. As this is sung in English, and the dialogue is full of funny lines, it often has the feel of a Broadway musical or Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. For fans of Beverly Sills, this is a real treat. She could sing La Fille Du Regiment with great flair and she totally enjoyed the role, whereas her rival Joan Sutherland merely sang the role in a pretty, cool manner. The production values are not high, and in fact the sets look like a cartoon and the costumes (particularly that of Sulpice and Sills) look like they are out of a Disney animated feature. But this is a document in the career of Beverly Sills. She has only two other filmed performances - La Traviat and Donizetti's Roberto Devereaux, both performances which followed this one in consecutive summer performances at Wolf Trap.
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