by Daniel Hathaway
When Joseph Bologne, aka Chevalier Saint-Georges, the dashing, mixed-race fencing champion born around 1839 on the Caribbean island of Guadaloupe hung up his sabre, he took up his violin in its place and entered Parisian high society as a composer and virtuoso soloist.
He also organized the commissioning and conducted the premieres of Haydn’s “Paris” symphonies, and helped establish the format and style of the classical string quartet in his spare time.
In addition to penning violin concertos for himself, Bologne wrote symphonies concertantes and half a dozen comic operas, of which only one survives in nearly complete form. L’amant anonyme received a colorful, sweetly tuneful, if dramatically uneventful production by Oberlin Opera from November 6-9 in Hall Auditorium. I saw the show on Sunday afternoon with the Friday-Sunday cast.
Staged with additions, substitutions, and cuts by visiting director Fenlon Lamb and elegantly conducted by Kelly Kuo with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra in the pit, Bologne’s score gave the cast of student singers both technical and interpretive challenges during the opera’s 90-minute, intermissionless runtime.
Technical, because some of the women’s roles more than dabble in coloratura — one even began with an introduction resembling Mozart’s Queen of the Night aria. And interpretive, because of the need for the singers to conjure up something meaningful to do onstage rather than looking busy moving furniture or standing pat and singing in what is inelegantly referred to as “park and bark” style. All met those challenges handsomely — both singing and acting.
Unlike many operas with complex plots, not much happens in L’amant. The painfully shy Valcour (Venus Minaya, who brought a clear voice and believable reticence to his character) is infatuated with the widow Léontine (the impressive soprano Amelia Freiss, whose voice wonderfully filled the hall), who considers him a close but Platonic friend. He invents an anonymous lover who sends letters and flowers to her.
It takes a while and the assistance of the secondary characters Ophémon and Dorothée (Brandon Phillips and Kailey Pritchard), but he finally marshals the courage to reveal his identity, and by the end of the opera, she has fallen for him as well. Taking a cue from the uncomplicated peasants Jeanette (Selkie Liu, who effortlessly sang up into the stratosphere) and Colin (Han Balzak), they plan a double wedding.
The excellent orchestra hints at the plot in pantomime during a lengthy overture before a single note gets sung. Then things turn bilingual: arias are sung in French with English supertitles projected rather too high overhead, and dialogue is spoken in English.
Production values were predictably high, with brightly colorful stage design by Laura Carson-Tarantowski brilliantly lit by Jeremy J. Benjamin, and beautiful period costume design by Chris Flaherty.
The well-prepared and -choreographed 11-voice chorus added considerable interest to the production, replacing the customary ballets that can suddenly break out for no reason during French stage works with peasant dances.
A stroke of genius on Lamb’s part brought violin soloist Michael Lawrence Smith onstage costumed as the Chevalier to deadpan a humorous Adagio between the first and second Act. The audience had great fun with that, egged on by a small but enthusiastic claque of students — the Thursday-Saturday cast? — who reacted with vigor to every sight gag.
Published on ClevelandClassical.com November 18, 2025
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