Giacomo Puccini's La Rondine ("The swallow") is one of his less-performed operas. Last seen in the Bay Area in 2009, in a San Francisco Opera production, the challenging piece was chosen to close Pocket Opera’s 2026 season, in a co-production with the Mercury Theater in Petaluma.
The last performance of Pocket’s version played at the lovely Gunn Theater in the Legion of Honor on Sunday, July 26, and it was a mixed success. As usual, the production was sung in English, in a translation by the late Donald Pippin, founding director of the company.
La Rondine is constantly in the throes of a serious identity crisis: Is it a romantic comedy or a drama of love lost? Is it operetta or grand opera? A producing company must find the emotional arc of the tragedy and meld it somehow with the fluff and fun.
In the opera’s story, Magda, the titular "swallow," wants to fly free on the wings of romance, but she's caught in the Parisian love-cage of her predatory sugar daddy, Rambaldo.
But when Ruggero, a young stranger from the south of France, turns up, Magda falls for him over a couple of beers at a less-than-respectable dance hall. The two run away to the Riviera, but their happiness is short-lived. Ruggero wants to marry Magda, but she — refusing to "pollute" Ruggero's sainted mother's home with her sordid history as a courtesan — leaves him and returns to Paris and her life as a kept woman.
Against that sad story, Puccini and his librettists repeatedly attempt to lighten the mood, particularly with a bickering love affair between Prunier, a bossy and volatile poet, and Magda's maid Lisette, a would-be actor who's quite the match for her lover's attempts to control her.
Given the libretto, it's inevitable that the music — and the emotional temperature — bounces back and forth. Love-duets in the grand style compete uncertainly with feisty comedy and dance numbers.
In Pocket’s cast, Ruggero was sung with appealing sensitivity by Maxwell Ary. With a supple physicality and remarkably clear diction, Ary projected a lover's passion and vulnerability, and reveled in Puccini's flowing melodies with his nimble tenor voice.
As Magda, coloratura soprano Michelle Allie Drever conveyed a rather different affect that made it hard to believe the chemistry between the two characters. Drever's strong grand-opera voice, favoring a dark palette of vowels that disguised the words, was often out of balance with Ary's more modulated voice, especially in the many duet passages where the two singers ascend into their upper registers.
The comic elements of Pocket Opera's production were the most successful. Oakland native Alex Taite as the poet Prunier was alternately gruff and sweet in his attempts to control his strong-willed partner. As Lisette, soprano Melissa Sondhi sang with sparkle and savvy.
A bevy of partygoers supported the lighter scenes with the kind of repartee that animates operettas like Die Fledermaus or The Merry Widow. Especially delightful were Clare Demer, Abigail Bush, and Leandra Ramm, who appeared in various roles, chatting and flirting with irrepressible energy. Stage director Elly Lichtenstein did an excellent job keeping these comic scenes clear and engaging on the tiny Gunn Theater stage.
Bay Area baritone Michael Jesse Kuo was appropriately forceful and stern in his role as Magda's "protector" Rambaldo.
Expertly supporting the singers throughout, conductor Mary Chun led the 12-person onstage orchestra in her own superb arrangement of Puccini's orchestration.
Pocket Opera's General Director Nicolas Garcia welcomed the audience by announcing that the company will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year with performances of The Magic Flute and Rigoletto, among others. This company may be pocket-sized, but it proudly sports a suitcase full of big ambitions
