By Eileen Wingard
SAN DIEGO — Nathan Gunn is one of America’s greatest and most versatile baritones, as he amply proves in the HersheyFelder produced and directed one-man show, Nathan Gunn, Flying Solo, A Musical Story about Family, Love, and the Wild World of Music.
Now showing, until June 10 at the Lyceum Stage, this virtuoso performance is infused with humor, pathos and some of the most famous baritone arias and songs from opera and musical theatre.
Gunn’s rendition of “Oh What A Beautiful Morning” from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma, the high school role that inspired his career, projected pure sunshine, and his rendering of the Figaro aria from Rossini’s Barber of Seville was of the quality one might hear at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York or at La Scala in Milan, all venues where this consummate artist has appeared.
Gunn’s stage antics, impersonating his mother’s dancing in the living room, or one of his teachers, the great diva, Renata Scotto, giving him a lesson, are hilarious. So are his imitations of Placido Domingo and John Denver.
A poignant moment was when he sang, with heartfelt tenderness, the folk song, “Hush Little Baby,” to his beloved first born, Madeline.
Gunn married his college sweetheart, Julie Jordan, while still in school and, together, they had five children.
His relationship with his father is a thread that ties the drama together, and underscores the yearning for parental approval. It was only at the end of his father’s life that Nathan fully realized how much his father, a man of few words, took pride in his son. His father’s email address read, operadad.
If tickets are still available, don’t delay experiencing this wonderful Hershey Felder production, another feather in the cap of this multi-talented genius.
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Wingard, a retired violinist with the San DSiego Symphony, is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. She may be contacted via eileen.wingard@sdjewishworld.com