Opera fandom is often built around a preoccupation — zealous, territorial, absolute — with distinctive voices. Maria Callas, Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Luciano Pavarotti — they’re all immediately identifiable by timbre alone. Teatro Nuovo, the brainchild of the bel canto specialist Will Crutchfield, inverts that value system. It asks: What would happen if all of the singers onstage shared a particular school of singing and even a certain vocal quality? The singers in the two casts largely shared a vocal profile and style — a trim yet colorful sound with a quick, understated vibrato and an emphasis on legato, portamento and unaspirated coloratura.

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Persons: Maria Callas, Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Luciano Pavarotti — they’re, Will Crutchfield, Donizetti’s, ”, Federico, Luigi Ricci’s “ Organizations: Teatro Nuovo, Theater, Lincoln Center