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Suzanne Roberts Theatre, Photo by G. Widman for GPTMC

The world of opera is wrought with passion, betrayal, friendships and feuds; and that’s just what goes on behind the curtain.

In Golden Age, a new play by Terrence McNally, we observe how prima donnas and divas hardly require music to create dramatic tension. Yet the biggest drama is drummed up by the composer Vincenzo Bellini, a man who truly lives for the honor of creating artful music. He’s antsy about the debut of his latest masterpiece, I Puritani. Bellini wants this work to help him win the hearts of the fervid French fans over his arch-rival Gaetano Donizetti, whom he despises for “cranking out operas like sausages.”

From the start we know that’s not the only thing Bellini needs to worry about — his hacking cough infers he’s also deathly ill.

As portrayed by the expressive Jeffery Carlson, Bellini is a moody quick-witted character. Not to mention quite the fluid playboy; or so we hear from others. Meanwhile his quartet of fickle opera stars are arrogant and insecure creatures who wrestle with the slings and arrows of loves won and lost.

There’s also a best friend and a visiting stormy soprano to deal with. Multiple storylines start off slow and gradually intertwine. Tensions build and disperse, and there’s a good number of inside references that unless you’re a real opera buff, will fly over your head.

If all that sounds melodramatic. Well, it is, and the play is funny throughout.

Golden Age
Now through February 21, 2010

Suzanne Roberts Theatre
480 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19146
(215) 985-0420
www.philadelphiatheatrecompany.org