by Daniel Hathaway

It’s been said that six is the magic number of guests to invite to a dinner party. Fewer than that reduces the likelihood of witty repartée, and more than that risks having the party break up into multiple conversations. That principle also applies to casts of comic operas that depend on scintillating conversations and wild misperceptions to fuel the plot.

Saturday evening’s Oberlin Opera Theatre performance of Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto at Hall Auditorium brought exactly half a dozen talented singer-actors together in a tightly-woven plot that left its characters and relationships in a quandary right before intermission. [Read more…]