The Passenger

Florida Grand Opera is currently presenting Mieczyslaw Weinberg's opera, "The Passenger," for the third offering of its 75th season.

This opera, which was originally intended to premiere at the Bolshoi in 1968 but was cancelled, sat unheard for many years until its concert premiere in 2006. This production, in a sense, is a tour version of the 2010 Bregenzer Festspiele production which was the first staged version of the opera. Since its 2010 premiere in Austria, this production has graced the stages of the London Coliseum, Houston Grand Opera, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago among others.

The plot of the opera begins with a German ambassador, Walter, and his wife, Liese, on board a luxury liner on their way to a diplomatic posting in Brazil. The year is 1959. At the beginning of the voyage Liese sees a woman whom she believes she recognizes. It comes out that during the Second World War, the 20-year-old Liese was a camp guard at Auschwitz and the woman she believes she recognizes would have been a prisoner there, a Polish political prisoner named Marta.

This production features a massive 11-ton set that was designed by Julian Engels for the Bregenzer Festspiele. The multi-level set takes up almost all of the available stage space in the Ziff Ballet and Opera house. The top levels represent the ship in 1959 and the bottom represents Auschwitz in 1944. Visually, "The Passenger" is stunning and the set alone is impressive.

This production features several outstanding performances. Soprano Adrienn Miksch was magnificent as the Polish woman Marta. Her voice shines and glistens with a shimmery vibrato and an amazing command of high pianissimo. Oftentimes in singing circles, one speaks of having a "spin" on a voice. Miksch is a perfect example of what this should sound like. It was delicate and beautiful while still filling up the entire auditorium with ease. Dramatically Miksch knows this role well, having performed it in other venues recently. This was a star turn by a star singer.

In the role of Liese, mezzo soprano Daveda Karanas had a lovely voice and cut a striking figure on stage. It is a pity she had no real aria to herself in the opera, but every time she sang, the notes were spun gold and warm butter.

Soprano Anna Gorbachyova sang the role of the Russian prisoner Katja. Gorbachyova's voice was lyric and pleasant to listen.

Soprano Elena Galvan sang the small role of the French prisoner Yvette. Galvan is a Florida Grand Opera Young artist and can be heard in a lead role in their next production of "Don Pasquale." Galvan has a beautiful coloratura soprano with a brilliant, crystalline top coupled with a good song sense of the dramatic.

Tenor Daniel Bates and bass-baritones Alex Soare and Zachary Elmassian played three SS officers. These gentlemen are also part of the FGO Young Artists studio and they gave commendable performances in their roles.

"The Passenger" is a very large opera, with a cast of 18 singers, a very large chorus, several supernumerary roles and an orchestra of more than 70 people, it is a massive undertaking in terms of the sheer number of people appearing before the audience.

Production wise, "The Passenger" is a certain hit. Where it falls slightly short however, is the piece itself.

Weinberg's music is slightly tonally challenging but nothing that will be off putting to the modern opera goer. As a whole, it is rather reminiscent of Prokofiev or Shostakovich. It is pleasant enough and conveys a sense of the drama, but you're not going to leave the opera house humming any of the tunes.

The opera feels overly long. The third scene in Act 1, which takes places in the barracks at Auschwitz, seems to last forever as does the a cappella folk song sung by Katja in Act 2. The chorus oftentimes seems ineffective and out of place.

The flip side of this is that while the opera at 2 hours and 40 minutes before intermission, seems overly long, it is short on character development. There are so many characters in the opera that you never really feel like you can connect with any of them. Marta has two arias, both of which are in Act Two and the only other real solo piece is the aforementioned folk song.

Liese, who in some ways is the main character, does not have an aria of her own. If there had been stronger character development, I might have been fine with an even longer opera, but as it was, I was left feeling slightly disconnected with the characters.

This is not to say that "The Passenger" is not a worthy theater experience. On the contrary, it is well worth the price of admission and, due to its rarity, something worth seeing. But is it a great opera? No. Is it a good opera? Without a doubt. Should you go see it? Wholeheartedly, yes.

"The Passenger" runs through April 9 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd. in Miami, FL 33132. For tickets and information, call 800-741-1010 or visit fgo.org.