by Kevin McLaughlin
This article was originally published on Cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio — For the August 13 Summers at Severance concert — A Night at the Opera — The Cleveland Orchestra, under the direction of John Fiore, treated the audience to a well-crafted mix of favorites and rarities.
Soprano Latonia Moore, whose winning stage presence could change the minds of more than a few listeners who swear they don’t like opera, drew the audience in with elegant and remarkably communicative singing coupled with direct smiles and knowing glances. Increasingly a Cleveland favorite, she sang the title role in Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa here in May of 2025 and returned this past January for the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Concert.
Rejoining the Orchestra just six weeks after the July 3 “America at 250” concert at Blossom Music Center, tenor Russell Thomas, a late substitute for Brandon Jovanovich, brought his warm, full-bodied voice and a more contained stage manner to Mandel Concert Hall.
After intermission, the Blossom Festival Chorus, under the direction of Lisa Wong, joined the soloists with sure preparation and theatrical ease.
Otto Nicolai’s overture to The Merry Wives of Windsor opened the evening brightly. Fiore drew out its Shakespearean frolic, and the Orchestra gathered speed in the closing pages with crisp articulation and comic energy.
Then came the final scene of Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka, a concert rarity compared to the composer’s more familiar Song to the Moon. In this Wagnerian love-death scene, Moore’s water spirit and Thomas’s human prince moved toward a fatal embrace. Moore sang with dark concentration and seamless legato while Thomas answered with warmth and heft. Their final exchanges moved past desire toward resignation. Fiore’s operatic experience showed in the freedom he gave the singers without loosening his control of the orchestra.
With its celesta, harps, and veiled sonorities, Franz Schreker’s Nachtstück from Der ferne Klang offered another rarity. Fiore drew atmospheric, beautifully controlled playing from the Orchestra.
Erich Korngold’s Marietta’s Lied shares Schreker’s luxuriant sound world, though its language is more immediately melodic. Moore sang rapturously, her lustrous sound hovering easily in the softer phrases. Rusalka had been dark and haunted, but Marietta was radiant and sensuous.
Russell Thomas brought silken phrasing, a radiant upper register, easy charm, and crystal-clear German diction to Franz Lehár’s Dein ist mein ganzes Herz (Yours is my heart alone.)
After intermission, Austria gave way to Italy. Fiore launched Giuseppe Verdi’s La forza del destino overture with brisk tempos and clear momentum, while Daniel McKelway brought eloquence to the clarinet solo.
The Blossom Festival Chorus followed with a clean, rhythmically firm Anvil Chorus from Verdi’s Il trovatore, then found greater expressive depth in Son giunta! (La forza), and the inward sorrow of Va, pensiero, the chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from the composer’s Nabucco, where the conductor resisted sentimentality and drew long, supple phrases from the singers.
Umberto Giordano’s Intermezzo from Fedora gave the audience a moment to bask in the orchestra’s mellow glow. Then Moore and Thomas brought easy chemistry and a sense of fun to Or lasciami al lavoro from Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca. Thomas built the famous Nessun dorma from Turandot patiently, carefully shaping its lyrical middle section before opening his voice for a ringing, heroic climax.
The evening’s deeper pleasures lay in its less familiar detours, but Moore and Thomas sent everyone home on familiar ground, toasting the audience and each other with the smiling Brindisi from Verdi’s La traviata.
Photos courtesy of Yevhen Gulenko
Published on ClevelandClassical.com, August 19, 2026
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