OPERA REVIEW : An Oddly Improvised ‘Ariadne’

The fancy but cumbersome production of “Ariadne auf Naxos” assembled by the Music Center Opera on Wednesday isn’t notable for stylistic consistency. Or artistic integrity.

Peter Hemmings, our budget-conscious impresario, has selected a distinctly non-stellar (translation: inexpensive) cast for Richard Strauss’ most fragile and, in some ways, most demanding opera. He has borrowed lavishly traditional decors by Wolfram Skalicki from Toronto, and, for the central mythology, Baroque-flavored costumes by Bruno Schwengl from Seattle.

Elsewhere, however, Hemmings and his inventive stage director, Stephen Lawless, have taken major liberties. They have moved the prologue, which sets the scene behind the scene, to the time of its composition--ca. 1916--even though the official credits deem neither the change nor a different costume designer worth acknowledging. The results are undeniably picturesque and undeniably nonsensical.

“Ariadne” is a profoundly clever and often poignant study in contrasts. Strauss and his inspired librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal knew what they were doing when they juxtaposed Greek tragedy with commedia dell’arte, the heroic with the trivial, the ideal with the practical, the lofty with the lusty.

Essentially, they wanted to examine two faces of woman: the noble, self-deluding and self-sacrificial Ariadne at one extreme; the whimsical, irresistible and eternally erotic Zerbinetta at the other.

The clash of temperaments and values is supposed to be set up in the prologue, which is supposed to take place early in the 18th Century. The richest man in Vienna has commissioned a heroic opera seria , to be followed by a clown show in the form of an opera buffa . At the last minute, for reasons not worth exploring here, the insensitive nouveau-riche patron of the arts decides to combine the two.

The original premise is charming and reasonably credible, given the 1716 ambiance. By advancing the framework 200 years, the Los Angeles masterminds create more problems than they solve. Commedia dell’arte troupes did not roam about Vienna in 1916. Wealthy men did not commission grand operas, much less perform them in their own hugely ornate private theaters. And, even if they did, they would not dress heroines of Greek mythology in anachronistic Baroque hoops.

Lawless has devised a mildly amusing, pervasively silly, frantically busy theatrical scheme for the prologue, full of sight gags and tasteless caricatures. The earnest young Composer--a character envisioned by Strauss and his librettist as a young Mozart--looks like a decadent artiste in modern drag. The prima donna becomes a tough-cookie cliche, the dancing master an obtrusively swishy fop. The buffoons resemble Mafiosi left over from our updated “Tosca.”

The local audience--which either never saw or has long forgotten more successful “Ariadnes” by the New York City Opera, the Los Angeles Opera Theater and the Long Beach Opera, not to mention the Met telecast--seemed to enjoy its little laff riot. Too bad it trampled both the delicate satire and the elegant music.

Ultimately, this heavy-handed distortion could appeal only to those who do not know, much less love, “Ariadne auf Naxos.” Here was a production that took cheap shots at both the comedy and the tragedy. Here was a production that, even in the conversational gambits of the prologue, encouraged the observer to devote primary attention to the clumsy supertitles (which stubbornly anticipated every punch line).

Listening to the music seemed of little importance in this farcical context. No one seemed to care that poor Strauss was stubbornly intent, so much of the time, on saying something serious.

I take that back. Christof Perick, the conductor, seemed to care. He fought a valiant battle in the pit to sustain the balance between wit and woe. He also tried to sustain momentum, to focus nuances and savor the transparent textures. But--given often-coarse playing by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, a disappointingly uneven cast and stage direction that tended toward the patently perverse--it was a losing battle.

Lawless moved his willing actors resourcefully, even inventively, about the opulent hand-me-down set. Give him that.

But he paid little attention to the repose that should counterbalance the bustle, and he sometimes suggested that he did not understand the text. The Music Master says that he is 30 years older than his student--presumably a late teen-ager. But the teacher, here, is a doddering old man. Zerbinetta complains that Ariadne won’t even raise her head for Harlekin’s serenade, but the diva has been standing tall and alert, head erect, all the while. And so it goes.

The cast was dominated, thank goodness, by Ealynn Voss in the title role. She did not make much of the words. Her legato was not always seamless. She certainly overdid the comic routines in the prologue. Nevertheless, unlike many a more famous rival in this challenge, she really delivered the vocal goods.

She commands a bona-fide dramatic soprano--warm, lush and wide-ranging. She can pluck a heroic B-flat from the stratosphere, and descend to the tragic depths with solid strength. And she can hold her own, with dignity, against even the most frenzied tenor in the final, endless love duet.

Gary Bachlund, her frenzied tenor, spent much of the evening as Bacchus bellowing in strangulated tones that bode ill for career longevity. Part of the problem is the composer’s, for the role lies dangerously high and piles climax upon climax. Still. . . .

Gwendolyn Bradley confronted the impossible music of Zerbinetta bravely and, most of the time, with winsome success. She did not flinch from lines that sometimes rise above the range of human audibility and do so in delirious coloratura squiggles. She had to resort to a little squeaky fakery at times, but she mustered an impressive performance against the odds.

Paula Rasmussen acted with sympathetic urgency as the distraught Composer but, like most misplaced mezzo-sopranos, found the high climaxes something of a trial. Richard Stilwell doddered effectively as the Music Master. Michael Smith did his outrageous thing with flair as the campy Dancing Master.

Theodore Bikel spoke the crucial lines of the Major Domo with impeccable hauteur and equally impeccable German (he ought to have given his colleagues diction lessons). The trio of should-be-ethereal nymphs (Jennifer Smith, Stephanie Vlahos and Dale Franzen) sounded a bit earthbound, the quartet of should-be nimble buffoons (John Atkins, Greg Fedderly, Kevin Bell and Jonathan Mack) seemed a bit plodding.

The printed program offered numerous puff pieces, irrelevant historical studies with crassly recycled illustrations and skimpy biographies of the singers accompanied by postage-stamp portraits. The magazine offered not a word, however, of conceptual explanation on the production in question.