Strauss Meets Frankenstein
|
York and Company
Photo by Keith Ian Polakoff
|
By Michael Van Duzer
Long Beach Opera continues its iconoclastic season in miniature with Strauss Meets Frankenstein.The production is not a long-lost Richard Strauss opera based on Mary Shelley's work but a combination of two shorter, unrelated pieces. A sort of post-modern Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci pairing for the 21st Century--although it’s hard to consider either piece to be truly operatic in scope or intention.
The Strauss portion of the evening consists of his score for Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Enoch Arden. This is not a song-cycle version of the poem, nor is it a through-composed accompaniment to the words. It is a series of themes and mood music intended to punctuate the piece. This format of true melodrama was popular in the 19th Century and survives today on recordings of great literature.
To read Tennyson’s epic love triangle among simple folk, Artistic Director Andreas Mitisek found Michael York. But even York’s carefully prepared performance and obvious love for the work can’t do much to breathe life into this musty relic of Victoriana. The poem was treated with great reverence and cannily illustrated by projections of contemporary drawings of the characters. Strauss’ music (well played by pianist Lisa Sylvester) was flavorful but remained secondary to the proceedings. The themes seemed like sketches for the tone poems he would later master. In the end, the work felt more like an interesting historical record than a vital performance option for today’s audience.
Vitality was certainly not lacking from the second part of the evening, H.K. Gruber’s Frankenstein!!, a pan-demonium for chansonnier and orchestra. Based on a series of short slices of childhood nightmare by poet H.C. Artmann, the piece is alternately creepy, arch, loaded with pop references and never takes itself too seriously.
The vignettes were performed by members of and puppets created by the Rogue Artists Ensemble. Their wittily surreal stage creations provided the perfect physical incarnation of Gruber and Artmann’s eerie hi-jinks—The Test Tube Lady and a giant Frankenstein Monster assembled onstage were particular delights. They also made use of deliciously bad home-made films where John Wayne’s roping style was satirized and Lois Lane found Superman in flagrante with Robin (the Boy Wonder).
Michael York returned as a very game chansonnier, letting down his hair and having a ball. Gruber’s music is spiky, quirky, and punctuated by the sound of toy instruments and popping paper bags. Mitisek conducted the orchestra with the cheeky abandon of a naughty boy playing a prank. It turned out to be the perfect choice. Frankenstein!! is enormous fun and far too short.
Center Theatre, Long Beach Performing Arts Center March 14-16, 2008
562 432-5934 www.longbeachopera.org
|
