Isn’t It Romantic?

 

Forget overpriced flowers or too-sweet chocolates for Valentine’s Day. The Florentine Opera serves a  luscious confection of love songs from Vienna to Broadway and Hollywood in Isn’t It Romantic? in Marcus Center Vogel Hall.

At the Saturday matinee, the versatile Florentine Studio Artists sang a smoothly choreographed revue of romantic ballads that was part operatic and part musical theater. Many of the songs, like Rodgers & Hart’s My Funny Valentine, are familiar and expected on a program like this. Others, like Noel Coward’s I’ll See you Again, aren’t often heard anymore.

Bass-baritone Dan Richardson, soprano Erica Schuller, tenor Matthew Richardson and mezzo soprano Kristin DiNinno entered singing Rodgers & Hart’s Isn’t it romantic? while waltz-walking their way to the stage from the back of the hall.

Dressed in formal attire, the four singers created a lovely ensemble, pairing as couples in several numbers and showing their theatrical side in Jerome Kern’s A fine romance. They were accompanied by pianist Eileen Huston, who ably took the place of an orchestra for this production.

Florentine general manager William Florescu emceed each set of songs, selected, he said “to introduce a new generation of singers and audiences to American standards.” Scott Stewart, the Florentine’s chorus master and vocal coach, was credited with the lovely flow of the program and several of the arrangements, including the exquisite Serenade from The Student Prince, featuring tenor Matthew Richardson.

Matthew Richardson, a onetime ballroom dancing instructor, also helped the ensemble put together some of their dance moves. He showed his versatility in the Gilbert & Sullivan song. On a tree by a river (willow, tit-willow) from The Mikado.

Erica Schuller’s rich soprano shone  in Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow Waltz, with Dan Richardson, and in her elegant solo, Meine Lippen sie kussen so heiss, from Lehar’s Giuditta.

Mezzo-soprano Kristen DiNinno’s voice seemed a tad tentative in Cole Porter’s rapid-fire Always true to you in my fashion from Kiss Me Kate, but was big-time Broadway in Adelaide’s Lament from Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls. And her harmonies with Matthew Richardson soared in Almost like being in love, from Lerner & Loewe’s Brigadoon.

Dan Richardson became King Arthur and Lancelot in convincing readings from Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot. How to handle a woman struck just the right note of wistfulness, and a dreamy rendition of If ever I would leave you took on new freshness with the inclusion of its opening Madrigal, sung in French.

The sophisticated ensemble sound of And this is my beloved, from the 1953 Kismet, featured two simultaneous duets and rivaled anything Sondheim could have produced. And the glorious sound of The way you look tonight, from the 1936 film Swing Time, was a showstopper.

Isn’t It Romantic? runs one more time, at 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $22 to $42 at the online box office and at the Marcus Center box office, 414 273-7206.

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