Poison posies: Opera Naples offers toxic love tale

March 10--The good: This garden is full of flowers that walk and talk and sing.

The bad: They're deadly. Don't pick those, Giovanni!

Opera Naples presents "Rappaccini's Daughter (La Hija de Rappaccini)," a tale based on Nathaniel Hawthorn's short story of the maiden whose father creates a garden that only she can live in, and which has rendered her poisonous to outside human touch. Love, however, burns brightest when it is impossible, and the infatuated Giovanni is determined to save his sweetheart, with disastrous results. There's drama akin to the romance of "Les Miserables," but with obstacles Victor Hugo's French lovers never dreamed of.

A chamber version of the opera at the Wang Opera Center on Friday and Sunday brings a rich confluence of international influences to its story: Hawthorn's tale, written in the U.S., is based in Italy; it was set to music with a Spanish libretto -- there are English supertitles here -- by Mexican composer Daniel Catán from a play on the theme by Nobel prizewinner Octavio Paz. Finally, Catán's music incorporated several Japanese musical influences he absorbed from study there funded by a British fellowship.

That Opera Naples knows about the last is the good fortune of having Andrea Puente-Catán, wife of the late composer, as the orchestra's harpist. Puente-Catán recalled his conversation about the small-interval music that had been incorporated in it.

But what audiences will notice most is an orchestration that uses the harp, two pianos and percussion as an emotional wrapping.Three kettle drums, several snares, bar chimes and a small gong provide a lush embrace for the singers, a magical, rather than noisy, approach. Catán himself wrote about what was his first opera to be professionally staged in the United States: "I needed to write music that was seductive, glittering, mesmerizing."

Puente-Catán pointed out that her late husband's style was accessible, neo-Romantic in style, "but it's not music from the 19th century. Still you can pick out arias in his works." Asked for a favorite, she chose three: the aria Giovanni sings when he realizes he is falling in love, a vulnerable adagio;: Rappaccini's own aria, threaded with mystical motifs; and the Beatriz's passionate death song.

"The harp has a meaning in its pitch and color, and in all his operas, the harp means love," Puente-Catán said. She has performed nearly all of her late husband's operas and she's particularly proud of the fact he created both grand-opera and chamber-opera versions of his works.

"He wanted his works to be heard," she explained. "And he understood the limitations of opera company budgets."

Opera Naples' costuming is still grand opera style, with the poison posies getting lavished with visual endowments from flower-bloom hats to dresses trimmed entirely in rose details, thanks to Judy Hushon; Gina Weiner turns their eyelashes into color-coordinated focal points matched to their costumes. For stage director Anthonly Salatino's garden sets, a gilded tree entwined with floral vines and bouquet-laden urns around the stage. Even the orchestra, sequestered from the performers by a wrought iron-look lattice screen, has a spray of flowers, en vase, in front of it.

This is Puente-Catan's second time to perform the chamber version of "Rappaccini's Daughter."

"Every time they play his works, I'm excited," she said. "To see the purpose of a life when the works are done, it means so much."

IF YOU GO

'RAPPACCINI'S DAUGHTER'

What: Spanish-language opera, with English supertitles, presented by Opera Naples, with artistic director Ramón Tebar conducting and Anthony Salatino as stage director

When: 8 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Sunday, March 10 and 12

Where: Wang Opera Center, 2408 Linwood Ave., Naples

Tickets: $45-$95

To buy: operanaples.org or 239-963-9050

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