WSJ Review of Tenor Overboard

By Heidi Waleson

Excerpted from “Glimmerglass Review: Francesca Zambello’s Curtain Call”

The surprise delight of 2022 was “Tenor Overboard,” a confection devised by playwright Ken Ludwig, Mr. Colaneri and dramaturge Kelley Rourke in which lesser-known Rossini extracts were repurposed as musical numbers in a new comic script.

Mr. Ludwig’s book is…a 1940s caper on an Italy-bound ocean liner featuring two sisters disguised as men, their pursuing father, a male vocal quartet, and an egomaniacal film actress—and the music, along with slightly massaged texts, is so wittily integrated. […] Musical selections—all sung in Italian—are as varied as “La danza” (a famous Luciano Pavarotti encore, here arranged for male quartet); the Act I finale of “L’italiana in Algeri,” an a cappella mourning ensemble from “Stabat mater”; and a buffo number from “Il viaggio a Reims.”

The game young cast played the comedy with aplomb. The standout singer was Keely Futterer as the daffy Jean Harlow-esque actress Angostura, who knocked out the bravura “Bel raggio lusinghier” from “Semiramide” (a Joan Sutherland staple) with total command. Mr. Colaneri’s effervescent conducting kept the fun bubbling throughout. Co-directors Ms. Zambello and Brenna Corner did the same, dropping in sight gags like a wandering gondola and an octopus that flies on board during a storm, aided by James Noone’s playful set, Loren Shaw’s clever costumes, and Robert Wierzel’s heavily saturated, colored lighting. Good comedies are in short supply: This show would make a terrific gala event, especially with a raft of top-flight Rossini singers.

Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).