OPERA REVIEW : Gerald Scarfe’s Phantasms of the Opera

Gerald Scarfe can’t be trusted. On the pretext of providing scenery and costumes for “Orpheus in the Underworld,” this British caricaturist and film maker has transformed the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion into a picture gallery--the Music Center Opera production (which opened Wednesday) into an extraordinary one-man show.

Scarfing up every hint of 19th-Century pomposity from Offenbach’s comic opera, he fills the stage with gigantic stovepipe hats and mutton-chop whiskers, leering eyes and sagging flesh. He varies and sometimes combines these obsessively grotesque, oversized Dickensian images with visions (presented at human scale) of insects and food--both shown as embodiments of raw desire.

Broad and furious in line, saturated to the point of florescence with intense color, Scarfe’s designs are unexpectedly domesticated by a concept of stage space that appears inspired by Victorian toy theaters. Moreover, he’s a born showman, shifting from one canvas to another with such frequency, in so many startling ways, that the evening attains a superb sense of visual rhythm.

Of course, a performance of sorts does garnish Scarfe’s exhibition, but it is scarcely worth considering because it is so flagrantly lacking in style--whether Offenbachian Second Empire style, Scarfian mock-Victorian style, contemporary musical comedy style, any style.

For starters, the English version by Snoo Wilson strains for a post-Freudian perspective on the opera but can’t even take care of basics. When a lyricist tries to rhyme prolific with critic , power with are and straw with door , abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

Offenbach composed “Orpheus” in 1858, then substantially expanded it in 1874. Each time, the aim was to satirize the hypocrisy of contemporary relationships through a reworking of the classic story about a sublime musician reclaiming his beloved wife from the dead. In Offenbach’s version, however, a philandering Orpheus is forced on his quest by a character called Public Opinion, someone who manages to intimidate even the Olympian gods.

Public Opinion looked like British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher when Scarfe’s designs and Wilson’s translation came into being--for David Pountney’s staging at the English National Opera in 1985. Now, however, this daunting symbol of social rectitude is impersonated by actor Dom DeLuise, and in her giant bustle the character looks like nobody except Mother Ginger in “The Nutcracker.”

DeLuise’s career thus far has been notable chiefly for the different contexts in which he has managed to be gross. Though he can’t even fake his way through some of this music, and he proves inept at formal declamation, “Orpheus” does officially add opera to his resume and that should be enough for the morbidly curious. It also should be enough to suggest how the political edge of the original ENO staging has been blunted by director Peter Mark Schifter.

Schifter seems desperate to please but he isn’t comfortable in either Offenbach’s world or Scarfe’s--so all he can do is fling out a lot of gags and hope that some of them divert the public. Inevitably, some do, but because both composer and designer are far more purposeful in their effects, Schifter’s scattershot staging quickly seems an intrusion and eventually an irrelevance.

Flat and foursquare, the conducting by John De Main isn’t much better, but at least he is not inventing anything: He has a sumptuous, witty score in front of him and also the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. He fails both but at a higher level than Schifter’s failure. At worst, he is dull, not corrupt.

The cast is game, if nothing else. They surely know that singing through microphones automatically places in question their credentials as legitimate operatic artists, but they give every amplified note whatever they’ve got.

When Tracy Dahl sings that “Eurydice is all aflutter,” she might well be describing her own breathy vocalism in the role. However, she knows how to act with her voice--even adding expressive coloration to the most intricate coloratura passages--and her spunky acting is welcome, too.

Ronald Stevens lacks the vocal suavity for Pluto (the ravishing, wordless cadence in his entrance aria is unforgivably coarsened) and Jonathan Mack is largely wasted as Orpheus: blustery in tone, listless as an actor. As Jupiter, Robert Orth is dragged down by some of Schifter’s worst ideas but doesn’t help matters by the slow pacing of his speeches.

Assuming that loudspeakers tell true, Dale Wendel’s singing as Cupid proves notable for sheen and clarity of articulation across her entire range. As Mercury, Michael Smith comes on so strong that his thin tone, feeble dancing and silly stage business matter less than the energy he pumps into his scenes. Greg Fedderly sings the Morpheus solo engagingly.

Stephanie Vlahos combines a serviceable Marilyn Monroe impersonation with sturdy singing as Venus--in the same way that Marvellee Cariaga deftly makes the role of Juno accommodate the mannerisms of Marjorie Main. Francis Egerton (John Styx), Suzanna Guzman (Diana) and Michael Gallup (Mars) never quite dominate their startling costumes, but they are all good sports.

On Offenbach’s Olympus, the gods dance the minuet while the denizens of Hades do the can-can (yes that can-can, the one that’s virtually become the French national anthem). Choreographer Mike Phillips adds tap, ballet, Broadway-esque show dancing and a bit of burlesque-style bump ‘n’ grind as well. Most of it looks awfully simplified and none too secure, but, hey, the Kirov corps never had to sing Offenbach while dancing on pointe.