Trouble in Tahiti Through March 15; Friday & Saturday, 7 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m.; $10-$15. Winchester Cultural Center, 3130 S. McLeod Drive, 702-455-7340.
Not all marriages are happy, and not all deaths in opera require blood. In Leonard Bernstein’s curious trifle, Trouble in Tahiti, he charts a day in the life of a dying marriage in the ’50s suburbs. Sin City Opera’s production of the show, playing through March 15 at the Winchester Cultural Center, uses a Mad Men vibe to capture some of the stifling despair behind ’50s consumerism. But the show still doesn’t wound.
Starting with a trio of chirpy radio singers, Lysander Abadia’s graceful direction captures the aggressively optimistic space-age vibe of the era, while allowing the black clouds of an unhappy marriage to seep through. The breakfast sequence between Sam (sung by Skip Galla) and Dinah (Stephanie Sadownik) is wonderfully understated, full of horrible passive-aggressive bullying and punishment. Sam says, “Try Dinah, try to be kind.” She stops and sits at the table, quiet. There’s a beat. Then she offers her hand across the table, a gentle, small token of peace. In response, he takes his hand off the table. It’s everything you need to know about this couple and exactly where their marriage is.
Other nicely realized moments include a chance encounter between Sam and Dinah that they both lie to get out of, set off by black umbrellas and brown trench coats; and Sam’s time at the office, a sharp paean to the contradictions and ego of the American businessman. (Emphasis on “man.”)
The singers themselves, though, don’t have as good a time communicating. Even as the trio (Scott Johnson, Marcie Ley, Jorge Ortiz) supported the scenes playing various characters, they lacked a vocal presence throughout the show. Their harmonies were excellent, but their somewhat subdued singing often got lost in the large Winchester space. Sadownik’s diction was also off for most of the evening, robbing her arias of intelligibility as well as impact. Singing opposite Galla at a psychotherapy session while he’s at the office, her part was lost. Galla felt tentative at times but still did the best at filling up the Winchester, a larger house than Sin City Opera is used to. And Ginger Land-van Buuren was delightful singing several commercial spots with gusto and great comedic appeal.
The orchestra, under the direction of Jack Gaughan, played beautifully. Both Scott Teeple on string bass and Bryan Wente on clarinet and flute were particularly evocative.
Even with these bright spots, Trouble in Tahiti remains a minor work by a great composer. Sin City Opera gives it some zest, but it doesn’t rise to new heights.
