OPERA REVIEW : Little ‘Herring’ in a Big Hall : Britten Opera Gets Lost in Pavilion Space

No one ever confused the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with Royal Albert Hall. Now we know that it cannot pass for Albert Herring Hall either, royal or otherwise.

The house at the Music Center is big. It seats 3,200. The stage is big. It can easily frame a Trojan horse or a Tristan ship. The pit is big. It accommodates Verdian splendor with pride and Straussian excess without much strain.

“Albert Herring,” Benjamin Britten’s delicately satirical essay in moral pretense and personal alienation, is tiny. The theatrical convolutions focus on three intimate settings. The chamber opera was first performed 45 years ago in Glyndebourne, a house that seated fewer than 600 at the time. The transparent orchestration requires no more than a dozen players.

So what was sweet little “Albert Herring” doing at the big bad Pavilion on Wednesday? Not much, alas. Catching this opera in that place was a little bit like trying to watch a flea circus at Dodger Stadium.

Peter Hemmings, intrepid impresario of the Music Center Opera, sees bringing Britten to Southern California as his special mission. One applauds his zeal, but one worries about his practical priorities.

Some masterpieces all but evaporate in the wide open spaces. This week it was “Albert.” Next season it may be “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which will return to the Pavilion after a less than happy reception at the somewhat smaller Wiltern Theatre.

It is possible that a different conductor and a different cast could have done more to project the subtle nuances of “Albert Herring” without undue inflation. But the modest team assembled for this production (a variation of the celebrated Glyndebourne version of 1985) seemed more suitable for the Wilshire Ebell--where, incidentally, the ill-fated L.A. Opera Theater had ventured a reasonable facsimile of “Albert Herring” back in 1980.

Roderick Brydon, the conductor, kept things moving briskly and efficiently in the lonely pit. He toyed knowingly with the “Tristan” love-potion quotation that accompanies Albert’s guzzling of the spiked lemonade. He did little, however, to define the essential musical characterizations and less to underscore the crucial textual niceties.

Textual niceties. What textual niceties?

One had to applaud the management for abandoning the usual redundancy of supertitles. The San Diego Opera had not been so brave when it staged the same fragile opera in a comparably large house a year ago.

On this occasion, the audience was, for once, invited to concentrate on the singers and the music, not on distracting words projected high atop the proscenium. The advantage was mitigated, unfortunately, by some vocal miscasting, not to mention some articulation problems that ranged from mock-British parlando to all-purpose mush.

Greg Fedderly looked perfect as Albert, the virtuous greengrocer’s son who finds spiritual--and, perhaps, sexual--liberation on the road to minor debauchery. Endearingly gawky, he actually resembled a shy, wide-eyed teen-ager, and he deliciously registered the hero’s discomfort when the guardians of Victorian virtue elected him King of the May (an appropriate female virgin being unavailable).

Nevertheless, the innate goodness of the character eluded him--he seemed a bit knowing, even arch, in his innocent poses--and his singing, though remarkably sturdy, was a bit monochromatic. His self-conscious and inconsistent accent, moreover, didn’t sound like anything one would be likely to encounter between Ipswich and Aldeburgh.

Lorna Haywood, a much underrated artist in the spinto repertory, made a formidable yet properly dignified battle-ax of Lady Billows, the matriarchal pillar of Suffolk society. Unfortunately, Britten wrote this daunting role for a British Turandot, and, despite some resourceful whooping and swooping, Haywood had difficulty both with the high tessitura and the high decibels.

Delia Wallis encountered similar discomfort with the stern busybody platitudes of Florence Pike. She was splendidly prim and prissy, but she could not make her lyric mezzo-soprano masquerade as the gallon-jug contralto required by the score.

The more lyrical roles were more effectively executed. Elizabeth Gale flitted and bustled delectably through the florid professorial duties of Miss Wordsworth. Paula Rasmussen found a fine combination of erotic allure and sympathetic practicality for Nancy. John Atkins partnered her crisply as a nice, not too suave Sid.

Lady Billows’ hen-pecked retinue was dominated by the basso, Michael Gallup, whose blustery Budd made the policeman’s lot a happy one even here. Jonathan Mack, who had been an exemplary Herring at the Ebell a dozen years ago, assumed the mayor’s pomposity with panache. Bernard Lyon, the mellifluous Mr. Gedge, did much with the vicar’s sanctimony, little with his lines. Marvellee Cariaga suffered sympathetically as Albert’s long-suffering mum.

The cute-kiddie brigade was nicely led by Nikolas Nackley (enjoying a busman’s holiday from turning screws), Jennifer Smith and Patricia Prunty.

Peter Hall’s original staging scheme, now entrusted to Stephen Lawless, is a model of old-fashioned, realistic, atmospheric logic. It entails a lot of extraneous hustle--including scene-stealing action for passing dogs and a stray baby--but every detail has been set affectionately in place. The delicate line that separates farce from comedy, and comedy from tragedy, is carefully respected.

John Gunter’s exquisitely observed period sets reinforce moods and define locales--a stuffy old manse, a quaint little shop, a veddy British garden--with whimsical precision. Too bad the imported scenery utilizes only a fraction of the stage.

The non-capacity audience applauded heartily at the end. One noticed countless early departures, however, and, despite an explanatory plea from the management, many of the chatty first-nighters mistook the orchestral interludes for Muzak.