Valentin's Day

West Chester baritone star Stephen Powell joins OCP in Faust.

by David Shengold

For Americans in the Gilded Age, "opera" was virtually synonymous with Charles Gounod's 1859 Faust. The piece's combination of devilish doings, implicitly steamy extramarital romance, faith-evoking organ music and soaring melodies won all Victorian and Edwardian hearts. Audiences moved on with the grittier verismo of Pagliacci and La Bohéme (also iconic pieces), but Faust retained a place in popular culture: it's in the first sentence of Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence; it's the show they're doing in Phantom of the Opera; and it's Jeanette MacDonald's operatic vehicle, dodging earthquakes in San Francisco.

The Opera Company opened its doors 30 years ago with Gounod's classic, and (welcomely) it begins the anniversary season. Faust has a lot going for it, including one of the most passionate love duets in any opera: the Frenchman in Gounod stressed the romantic plot, not Goethe's more philosophical flights. The story, made safe for bourgeois sensibilities or not, takes some amusing turns (the devil likes to show off) and gets quite involving, especially when things turn rough for the heroine, impregnated and abandoned by Faust, cursed by her brother and excommunicated. The scene where the devil's chorus drowns out her attempt to pray in church remains chilling and powerful. OCP's impressive cast includes three audience-pleasing leading singers who have made their mark with the company: tenor William Burden as the title (anti-)hero and bass-baritone Richard Bernstein as the debonairly evil Méphistophélés, who helps him seduce Marguerite (soprano Mary Mills).

But audiences should expect great things from the evening's fourth star: the rising American baritone Stephen Powell, making his OCP and (despite several summer appearances with the orchestra) his professional Academy of Music debut as Valentin, Marguerite's soldier brother. "At long last!" sighs the West Chester native, in demand across North America but again resident in the town where he grew up balancing piano, tennis and singing with rock and wedding bands. ("I wanted to be Billy Joel, 'cause he could play and sing and write; as a history buff I liked the way he worked history into his songs.") Piano and composition studies at Northwestern yielded to concentration on his voice, a classic lyric baritone with few current equals for legato suavity and rock-solid quality. Powell has built his career soundly. Apprenticing at the Lyric Opera of Chicago led to supporting roles there and at the Met. His real rise to prominence took place at New York City Opera, where he made headlines on opening night 1995 by jumping in at the last minute in the demanding title role of Hindemith's Mathis der Maler. His successes there include Strauss, Puccini and Verdi parts, even stretching back to 1641 with a gorgeously sung, movingly acted Monteverdi Ulysses. Most significant may have been Papageno in Mozart's Magic Flute, since doing it he met his wife, the fine soprano Barbara Shirvis. Powell and Shirvis manage to appear together occasionally—including Don Giovanni mere weeks before the first of their two sons, now four and six—and plan to do more, including Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin (a favorite part of Powell's, which he really aced in Princeton several summers ago). When possible the pair do a joint recital program they've assembled called "Hearts Afire," spanning many different kinds of love songs.

For the moment, especially given what he finds a congenial cast and production, Powell is "very happy" to be singing Valentin: "The role has taken a while to come around, but I've been singing the aria forever." "The aria" is "Avant de quitter ces lieux," one of the great knock-'em-dead tunes of the 19th century, which Gounod actually added to the score in 1864 in tribute to the great English baritone Charles Santley. Besides this virtue-laden plum, Valentin when dying gets to play the heavy with his traduced sister. "Damning her to hell … nice of me!" Powell muses, "Maybe given moral standards when it was written, a lot of people would have agreed with him, but it's a bit harsh and overboard for me. You would think somebody so morally upstanding would have some compassion. But there are plenty of people like that today." This historically minded singer was happy to learn that one of his Academy predecessors as Valentin was Nelson Eddy, "stirringly romantic" according to the December 6, 1929 Philadelphia Ledger. Eddy, who later gave up Broad Street for Hollywood, sings on a VCR favorite of the Powell boys, Disney's Willy the Operatic Whale. Though their dad also does Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, he's serious about opera singing and heading steadily for the heights.

Faust, Fri., Oct. 8 and 22, 8 p.m.; Sun., Oct. 10 and 24, 2:30 p.m.; Wed., Oct. 13, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., Oct. 16, 8 p.m., $5-$155, Opera Company of Philadelphia at the Academy of Music, Broad and Locust sts., 215-732-8400, www.operaphilly.com.