 
Teatro Grattacielo
2 Riverside Drive
2C
New York, NY
10023
212-595-7127
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L'Oracolo and L'Incantesimo
REVIEWS
The New York Times
Opera Today
MusicalAmerica.com
The New York Times, November 15, 2007
Sorcery, Lust, Chinatown and Opium: It's All About Opera
Music Review by Vivien Schweitzer
...L'Incantesimo includes a symbolic white fawn, a winter garden that magically bursts into spring and an omnipotent sorcerer. NBC broadcast the work (with a libretto by Sem Benelli) in 1943, but Mr. Montemezzi, best known for the opera L'Amore dei Tre Re, died a few months before its 1952 stage première in Verona, Italy...
David Wroe conducted the Teatro Grattacielo Orchestra and Cantori New York Chorus in a vivid reading of the sweeping Montemezzi score, which has orchestration reminiscent of Wagner and Italianate vocal lines. ... Asako Tamura sang expressively with a bright soprano, and the tenor José Luis Duval ardently conveyed Rinaldo's love for her. The baritone Todd Thomas aptly portrayed Folco.... The standout was the Egyptian bass-baritone Ashraf Sewailam as the wizard.
 Mr. Sewailam was equally persuasive as the wise doctor of L'Oracolo. Performed at the Met, starting in 1915, as a showcase for Antonio Scotti, the work faded from the repertory when he left the house in 1933.
...Mr. Sewailam used his richly lyrical voice to convey first the commanding dinity, then the rage of the Oracle, who avenges the death of his son, San-Lui. In that role Arnold Rawls sang passionately, if with a tendency to shout, as he expressed his love for Ah-Joe, elegantly sung by Ms. Tamura. ... The baritone Daniel Ihn-Kyu Lee and Mabel Ledo, a warm, expressive mezzo-soprano, were persuasive as the businessman Hu-Tsin and the nurse to his child.
A children's chorus wearing traditional Chinese clothes sang well, though its placement on the extreme left of the stage must have led much of the small audience to strain to see the young singers.
Verismo Rarities, Teatro Grattacielo
Opera Today
John Yohalem Copyright © 2005 Opera Today, Inc.
Part of the fun of visiting the many companies that specialize in unearthing forgotten operas lies precisely in not knowing what you’re going to get.
Take Leoni’s L’Oracolo, now — Antonio Scotti recorded a bit of it (he played wicked Cim-Fen, proprietor of an opium den in San Francisco’s Chinatown)... But you never know if you don’t go hear them, and sometimes that hearing provides astonishment, surprise in the amount of pleasure available. You have to try it, or you will regret the chance lost. That, I am happy to report, was the conclusion of a happily dazed band of opera lovers at Fisher Hall again last Tuesday, when Teatro Grattacielo, an organization that presents one concert a year of a forgotten (often unknown) work of the verismo era.
...all eyes sparkled and a happy babble of comment filled the air at intermission: If L’Oracolo is not a masterpiece of the first water (did verismo produce masterpieces of the first water? Isn’t that besides the realistic point of the form?), the opera is a thing of beauty, melodious and passionate and odd, filled with blood and lovely tunes and horrible destinies. Any decent orchestra will have fun playing it ...Best of all, Teatro Grattacielo had filled the cast with excellent voices, healthy, loud, urgent, and thoroughly schooled in the Italian manner.
Todd Thomas, a baritone of imposing malice — a man born to sing Scarpia, which he does — sang the monstrous Cim-Fen. Ashraf Sewailam, a young Egyptian bass of distinction, sang his nemesis, Win-Shee. Asako Tamura made a striking impression as Ah-Joe, one of opera’s many delicate oriental maidens with a larynx of steel (Teatro Gratticielo has already presented Mascagni’s Iris), and Arnold Rawls sounded attractive and ardent in the short but high-lying role of her unfortunate true love, San-Lui. Daniel Ihn-Kyu Lee, as the wealthy businessman at the center of the plot, and Mabel Ledo in the brief role of a careless nursemaid, made one wish to hear more from them.
L’Incantesimo was another matter. Almost the end of the line for verismo and, indeed, for Italian melodic opera, it is Montemezzi’s tribute to the fairy tale works of Richard Strauss and his ilk... José Luis Duval sang the desperately high-lying role of the lover as well as one could expect — he will find the awkward Strauss tenor repertory congenial, or at least possible — and Mr. Thomas scored again as a bravura heavy: hard, haughty, loveless Count Folco. Ms. Tamura gamely followed up her Ah-Joe by replacing an ailing colleague as Giselda, who doesn’t have to do much, but must do it at the top of her range, with the entire orchestra competing fortissimo. She, like Mr. Thomas, sounded at the evening’s end as if they gobble this stuff for aperitifs and could happily sing more — which cannot physically be true. Mr. Sewailam, in the brief but significant role of the sorcerer, was again highly effective.
The Teatro Grattacielo Orchestra was led, and the singers inspired, and the entire performance a triumph for David Wroe....
Two Obscure Italian Operas Deliciously Excavated
from MusicalAmerica.com
Peter Davis, Nov. 20, 2007 ©
2007 MusicalAmerica.com
Even hardened musical archaeoloists were probably encountering Teatro Grattacielo's most recent operatic excavation for the first time at Avery Fisher Hall Nov. 13: a double bill of Franco Leoni's L'Oracolo... and Italo Montemezzi's L'Incantesimo...the pairing of seldom-performed one-act operas based on fortune-telling subjects...
As always, Teatro Grattacielo had its priorities straight, and concentrated primarily on achieving the finest musical results. Once again the conductor was young David Wroe, who presided over a positively breathtakingly committed and disciplined performance of both pieces, especially the Montemezzi, which is far from easy to balance or control. As Chim-Fen and Falco, Todd Thomas had the main vocal burden to shoulder; his sturdy baritone and forthright delivery was exactly what was needed for both these macho parts. Tenors Arnold Rawls (San-Lui) and José Luis Duval (Rinaldo) might have sung with a bit more grace, but their ringing security and heartfelt enthusiasm were most welcome. Asako Tamura went mad prettily as Ah-Joe, and later deputized for an ailing Aprile Milio as Giselda. The latter's heavier duties perhaps asked for a bit too much of her lyric soprano, but she had many lovely moments. Teatro Grattacielo, devotedly caretaking a neglected corner of the Italian operatic repertory, once again put us in its debt.
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