U of A’s Little Women Leaves a Warm Afterglow
© University of Arizona
When Charles Roe, the voice professor and director at the University of Arizona’s Opera Department decided to mount Mark Adamo’s Little Women, a piece Roe readily admits to having fallen in love with on first hearing, he may have had some second thoughts about producing the opera but certainly not with Adamo’s lucid, lyrical arcs of tender melodies the composer dotted throughout his score. And since Adamo also wrote the text, the composer was able to connect the many threads of emotion thereby making more substantial character studies of the four young women growing into maturity during the American Civil War, than Louisa May Alcott was able to do in her very poular novel. Perhaps it was just these two artistic accomplishments that had given Roe pause, for he recognized the opera would not only need singers who could handle Adamo’s challenging vocal leaps but they needed to cope with the quick emotional changes the composer expects from his characters. Well, the director needn’t have reflected too long for he struck gold with the vocal talents he had on hand. In fact, if there was one quality that came to the forefront of this production, it was the singing. Even in roles that might be considered secondary to the principals, Meg, Amy, Beth and Jo, there was plenty of vocal strength and beauty to go around fulfilling Adamo’s intented musical warmth.
Near the end of Act One when Meg and John Brook approach her parents asking to use their wedding vows as their own, Adamo wrote a duet filled with musical reminiscences of Alma and Gideon’s wedding day and their continuing struggle to keep their vows alive. Ashleigh Guida and Ken Ryals expressed their mutual love with careful and graceful tones as Guida’s rich mezzo covered the piece with just the right touch of vocal persuasion. And in Act Two, baritone Nathan Krueger as Professsor Friedrich Bhaer brought both a deep clarity and a gentle lyricism to his aria in which he professes his growing love for an insecure Jo trying to find her place in the world.
Kathryn Mueller and Todd Strang
