KRAUS TRIUMPH : S.F. REVIVES MASSENET’S ‘WERTHER’

Ordinarily, it is easy to dismiss Massenet’s “Werther” as a soggy piece of romantic puffery. Usually, it is easy to regard the sentimental old score as a quaint and frilly French handkerchief dipped in cheap perfume.

It wasn’t easy Wednesday night at the San Francisco Opera.

There is nothing ordinary, nothing usual about Alfredo Kraus. The Spanish tenor, inexplicably absent from San Francisco for 17 years, confronted the passionate yet introspective Goethe hero in his Gallic incarnation and turned the challenge into a compelling demonstration of great singing--and of great operatic acting, too.

He gave a performance so sensitive, so aristocratic, so intelligent and so poetic that comparison with other tenors in the role, past and present, seems both foolish and futile.

That Kraus happens to be in his late 50s is, under the circumstances, a trivial, almost irrelevant, statistic. His voice remains fresh, pliant, responsive to a myriad expressive and dynamic nuances.

He can sustain an endless legato on a tiny thread of tone, swell to a ringing, plangent forte, illuminate the line with a shimmering glow, control a diminuendo of infinite finesse. He never forces, never cheats, never stoops to easy effects.

He can underscore every crucial syllable of the text with the appropriate subtle color. He can wring pathos from a tired cliche, make even the flabbiest rhetorical gesture seem heroic. He does all this, moreover, with elegance, with restraint, and with sovereign dignity.

He cuts a slender, noble figure on the stage, and he knows how to make small details count. In the last act, for instance, when he begins to read the rapturous Ossian poem to his beloved Charlotte, he stands very still, lost in ethereal nostalgia. Then gradually, as if in a trance, he closes his eyes. Absent-mindedly, he drops the pages of the manuscript. Still, he continues the recitation of “Pourquoi me reveiller?”--ardently, ecstatically, hypnotically.

Renata Scotto, hardly typecast, complements Kraus as a Charlotte of irresistible delicacy, vulnerability and warmth. The mezzo-soprano tessitura of the role may limit her impact on a purely vocal level, especially in the Letter Scene, but this detracts little from a remarkably thoughtful, stylish, eloquent performance.

Terence McEwen, a longstanding champion of French opera, has cast the supporting roles with comparable care. Young Stephen Dickson brings a suave lyric baritone and compassionate bearing to the platitudes of Albert. Cheryl Parrish is all sweetness and light in the girlish flourishes of Sophie. Renato Capecchi, though virtually voiceless, contributes a crusty character study of the paternal bailiff, and James Patterson’s sturdy basso demands special attention as his crony Johann.

Michel Plasson, making his San Francisco debut, conducts with authentic Opera Comique affect, but, on occasion, permits some alarmingly untidy orchestral playing. It is not his fault, of course, that the essential intimacy of the work is sorely strained by a theater as cavernous as the War Memorial Opera House.

Bernard Uzan, the new stage director, moves the actors deftly enough and freezes the action occasionally for telling cinematic impact. His best efforts are compromised, however, by the cheap, half-heartedly realistic window dressing designed by Steven Rubin in 1975.

A “Werther” with Alfredo Kraus deserves a better setting.