Word: countesses
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangerous is the tale of two aristocrats, Valmont and the Countess Juliette, who plot the seduction of several young women including Cecile Volanges and Madame de Tourvel. Cecile has a jovial middle-aged fiance, a source of some amusement as he bumbles about. She also has a young flame, Danceny. Valmont and Juliette each plan to seduce a member of the young couple while Valmont tackles, as an extra challenge, the pure Marianne. Juliette and Valmont are married in Vadim's version, as is Marianne, who has a young daughter, these facts make the levels of jealousy...
Michelle Pfeiffer, an Oscar nominee this year for Dangerous Liaisons, makes her stage debut as the grieving countess Olivia. Jeff Goldblum (The Fly) is her pettish steward Malvolio, John Amos (Roots) her drunken uncle Sir Toby Belch and Gregory Hines (The Cotton Club) Toby's companion in ribaldry, the jester Feste. Stephen Collins (Tattinger's) is the duke who desires Olivia, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (The Color of Money) the girl-masquerading-as- a -pageboy sent to plead his case. Among other screen and stage stalwarts rounding out the troupe is Charlaine Woodard (Ain't Misbehavin') as the merrily scheming...
Susanna, in cahoots with the Countess (Martha Warren) launches a plot against the Count (David Kravitz) who wants Susanna and doesn't return the Countess' love as he should. Basically, Susanna wants Figaro, the Count wants Susanna and the Countess wants the Count. Throw in a case of a lovesick teenager (Cherubino), recruited to aid in the scheme by the women, and a subplot where the orphaned Figaro learns the identities of his real parents, and you get some really dangerous liaisons...
Warren, as the lovestruck Countess, lyrically opens the second act with her sorrowful "Porgi, amor, qualche ristoro al mio duolo, a mieis sospiri" aria ("Grant, love, that relief to my sorrow, to my sighing"). Aided by a dramatic blood-red backdrop, she expresses her grief over her unrequieted love for the Count. Although wooden at first, Warren's Countess warmed up as the action heated up. She does, however, keep a cool distance from the audience as well as from the Count, who is well-played by Kravitz...
...Andrew Porter (I mean, would Susanna really call Figaro a "blockhead" in the eighteenth century?), it is Mozart in the end who gives us the most aural pleasure. Who can resist the remarkable closing scene of The Marriage of Figaro, in which Figaro and Susanna, the Count and Countess Almaviva, Marcellina and Bartolo and all other cast members join together in praise of love and happiness? It's a scene not to be missed, confirming Mozart's brilliance in choral writing and the Lowell House Opera's commendability in bringing...