Opera : Another Glitzy Opening, Another Tired Show in S.F.

SAN FRANCISCO —  The opera isn’t the thing at the opening of the opera season here. Everyone knows that.

The important action takes place at the fancy parties, balls, receptions, parades and supersocial dindins that surround this annual orgy of conspicuous consumption. A box seat costs $500. Admission to the auxiliary celebrations can cost more.

On Friday, Sarah Brightman serenaded select revelers in a tent outside the War Memorial Opera House, mouthing phantom operatic tunes amid the clatter of plates and the clink of glasses. Fashion writers outnumbered music critics in the crowd.

Out front, a cable car circled the block with a sign proclaiming “Your Local Furriers Salute 1991 Opera Season.” A group of protesters on the steps waved “Fur Is Dead” placards and yelled an epithet at the cheery folks modeling ermine and mink: “Killers.” Nothing that transpired on the stage aroused comparable passion.

The well-dressed, well-stuffed first-nighters in this sophisticated city didn’t seem to want to devote much attention to “La Traviata.” No one but the poor tenor seemed surprised that a third of the audience was still chatting, still strolling in at the beginning of the second act while he was pouring out his amorous gut in “De’ miei bollenti spiriti.”

Opera will, no doubt, be a serious commodity on the second night of the season when the company turns to the weighty challenge of Prokofiev’s “War and Peace.” “Traviata”--sponsored, it says here, by Lexus, a division of Toyota Motor Sales USA--represented just another glitzy opening, another tired show.

In a sense, this particular opera in this particular version may have been a good choice. It strained no intellect. It offered the comfort of familiar oom-pah-pah tunes, and its four short acts provided three long intermissions during which the audience could strut its stuff.

John Copley’s competent-to-vulgar staging scheme, John Conklin’s window-dressing sets and David Walker’s lavish costumes date back to 1987. The decors have been seen in Costa Mesa and San Diego. This production wants to jolt neither conventional sensibilities nor expectations.

It can function, however, as a sensible framework for a trio of inspired singing actors. The trio selected for this occasion seemed more distracted, alas, than inspired.

Carol Vaness was cast as the vulnerable courtesan with a heart of gold. She looked lovely, moved well, acted conscientiously, phrased neatly and sang beautifully much of the time.

She maneuvered her lirico-spinto soprano around the coloratura hurdles of the first act rather cautiously, avoiding the optional stratospheric flights. She made much of any passage that permitted pianissimo reflection, and rose honorably to the heroic outbursts.

Still, she did not sound as fresh or as vibrant in Verdi as she does in Mozart. Her Violetta cannot match her Fiordiligi--not yet, anyway.

Perhaps with time she will find her own way to convey the pathos of the protagonist’s tragic sacrifice. She still relies too much on platitudes--vocal as well as physical. Greater dignity may be required, and greater emotional frenzy too.

Vaness would benefit, in any case, from the collaboration of a conductor more sympathetic, more flexible and more expressive than Maurizio Arena. His primary concerns on this occasion seemed to be crisp articulation, breathless speed and basic concision. He did allow Alfredo one verse of “O, mio rimorso,” but otherwise observed all the standard, time-dishonored cuts.

Marcello Giordani, remembered for his sensitive Nadir in the Opera Pacific “Pecheurs de Perles,” made his local debut as a handsome, modestly ardent Alfredo who happened to sound indisposed. When he sang softly, which, gratefully, was much of the time, he demonstrated considerable lyric finesse. His slender tone turned dry and perilously tight, however, under pressure. Even so, he capped his cabaletta with a ringing, ascending climax.

Paolo Coni made a stodgy debut as a snarly, oddly youthful Germont pere who could not liberate “Di Provenza” from common organ-grinder associations. Unwittingly, he reminded us that authentic Verdi baritones have become nearly as rare as dodo birds.

The motley supporting cast included Philip Skinner as a nicely sinister Douphol, Catherine Keen as a lush-toned Flora who suffers from a Bette Midler complex, Mark Delavan as a silly Marquis who likes to get spanked and the ever-reliable Donna Petersen as an ever-compassionate Annina. Adela Clara choreographed exceptionally fatuous gypsy-pipsy routines for Flora’s scarlet bordello.