Keely Futterer / Recensies

Big-voiced standouts in smaller roles included...Ms. Futterer as the slave trader Vanderdendur - her high E-flat in "Boy Voyage" brought back memories of her Armida the previous night.

The sterling cast includes...soprano Keely Futterer as the piratical slaver Vanderdendur

Keely Futterer was a thrilling whirlwind as Armida, ornamenting wildly and unafraid to take high notes into shriek territory.

In the role of the opera’s villainess par excellence, the sorceress Armida, Young Artists Program soprano Keely Futterer offers a richly realized character concoction. Seductive, red-maned, a lady ogress fully worthy of weird-sisterhood with the likes of Ursula the Sea Witch of The Little Mermaid, or Sigourney Weaver’s channeling of the demon hellion Zuul in Ghostbusters, so indelible is the impression Futterer makes that, in fact, one is tempted to wonder why the opera isn’t titled Armida.

The whole cast was very talented and I was amazed by the commitment to the characters and the high notes of Keely Futterer (Armida).

And fun is a fine description of this staging, which transplants a tale of the Crusades to 1980s Wall Street, turning what was once early-18th-century Christian propaganda into a wry commentary on capitalism. Full of imaginative costuming and staging ideas, it's also finely sung and acted, and that comes through clearly in Minnesota Opera's new North Loop venue, the Luminary Arts Center. Giacomo Rossi's libretto is all about love amid warfare, with sorcerers and psychics aiding each side in what was then a Christians-vs.-Moors story. In Minnesota Opera's version — the brainchild of director Mo Zhou — old money does battle with new, the silly-suited aristocracy trying to either swallow or merge with a successful startup where the leaders dress in pointy-shouldered, flame-emblazoned leather jackets, bodices and codpieces.

In director Lawrence Edelson’s Opera Saratoga production, Marie is played by coloratura soprano Keely Futterer with spellbinding vocal variety and fearless comic brilliance. Decked out in Act I military mufti, her abundance of loose, honey-blond hair flying, she hoofs it with abandon and arpeggiates with tomboy-diva virtuosity. Then, in Act II, negotiating Marie’s faltering attempts at transformation into elegant upper-class lady, Futterer prompts side-splitting guffaws with her clodhopping Elly May Clampett-ry, impudent tantrums, and pitch-perfect sendups of art-song affections.

Lyric soprano Keely Futterer is, at least his equal – and many might rightfully argue better – since her role is more demanding. Futterer has one of the most gorgeous voices you can imagine with charm to match. Hers is a performance you will remember and speak about for years.

In her final season as artistic director, she presents a comedic Rossini pastiche, ‘The Sound of Music,’ ‘Carmen’ and a thematically linked double bill of ‘Taking Up Serpents’ and world premiere ‘Holy Ground’.

Petronio, the earnest and blustery father, was played with near-brutal force by bass-baritone Steffano de Peppo.