Three for the Opera

By Willaim Bender, W.B, Joan Downs

Kings, queens, demons and two surprisingly resilient corpses played leading roles as three major opera premires took place in as many cities last week. At the Opera Company of Boston, the scene was 16th century Mexico in the long-awaited US. premiere of Roger Sessions' Montezuma. At the Baltimore Opera Company, it was 14th century Portugal in the world premiere of Thomas Pasatieri's Ines de Castro. At the New York City Opera, the setting was the land of Talmudic legend in the U.S. premiere of Ashmedai by Israel's Josef Tal. All three operas were sung in English. Though the music varied in worth, all three productions boasted brilliant stagecraft and demonstrated once again the vitality of U.S. regional opera.

MONTEZUMA. Some people transform a stage. Sarah Caldwell revolutionizes it. At the premiere of Montezuma, it was difficult to recognize the tiny (26-ft.-deep) stage of Boston's old Orpheum Theater. The apron had been built out 8 ft. The lower boxes had been converted into overflow basins for extra members of the orchestra, mostly percussion. Through the upper boxes paraded soldiers and Aztec natives on their way to destiny. Behind scrims and translucent screens soldiers fought silhouetted battles that suggested endless depth.

Montezuma is about as grand as opera can get. The story is that of Cortez's conquest of Mexico and subjugation of Montezuma, the enlightened ruler of the Aztecs. In its clash of cultures and religions, and in its juxtaposition of war and idyllic love scenes, Montezuma is a powerful statement about the human condition that calls for astute judgment and courageous imagination. This Caldwell has provided, with astonishingly flexible sets (by Helen Pond and Herbert Senn) and bold lighting effects (by Gilbert Hemsley) that the Aztec sun gods might have admired. On the musical side, Boston's impresario/director/ conductor has assembled the shiniest of casts, notably Tenor Richard Lewis as Montezuma and Soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson as Malinche, the princess turned slave.

Until last week, Montezuma had been performed only once--and poorly --over a decade ago at The Deutsche Oper in West Berlin. Among those in the audience, however, was Caldwell, and ever since she has been patiently trying to get the money together to stage the opera in Boston. Montezuma is indisputably twelve-tone music's finest hour on the operatic stage. Whether it finds its way into the standard repertory or, like Berg's Wozzeck (which it rivals), stays on the fringes, is something only the years can determine. For now it is enough that Montezuma is a work that imbues the mind with searing resonances.

INES DE CASTRO. This is the twelfth opera by the New York-born composer Thomas Pasatieri, 30; most of them have been performed either by U.S. regional opera companies or on television. A lurid tale of murder, intrigue and frustrated love, Ines de Castro builds to a climax in which the demented hero Dom Pedro places the cadaver of his true love Ines on the throne and declares her queen. Stage Director Tito Capobianco has conceived a stunning production that conveys most of the libretto's horror. What is called for musically is the power and sweep of a Verdi, or the psychological insight of a Moussorgsky. Pasatieri Instead has written in a bland, old-fashioned style that might be suitable for an O. Henry short story-- say, The Gift of the Magi. Easy as it is to listen to, Pasatieri's music simply fails the text.

ASHMEDAI. Josef Tal, 65, is Israel's leading electronic composer. He works in a universally recognized style: 20th century eclectic. This grab-bag approach blends traditional composing techniques, rigorous twelve-tone segments reminiscent of Schoenberg with some electronic buzzes and drones. There are some striking orchestral passages. This kind of writing is not designed to display the human voice, despite vivid characterizations by Soprano Eileen Schauler and Baritone Paul Ukena.

Ashmedai is the story of a demon who corrupts an idyllic kingdom that has been at peace for 500 years. The work is really more a theater piece than an opera. The evening owes its success mainly to Hal Prince's (West Side Story, Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof) making his debut as an operatic director. He is a master of illusion. There is a scene of villagers applauding a fire-eater that visually recalls Bruegel, a ridiculous pas de deux between the queen and a giant rooster. In a final Princely touch, darkness envelops the opera house. Then the spotlight focuses on the demon Ashmedai, who is smiling down from a box in the theater; it is a visual grace note that will outlast anything the audience has heard.

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