TRIUMPH FOR SIEPI : AN UNUSUAL ‘DON CARLO’ IN LONG BEACH, AT LAST

It began two years go, exactly. With a modest budget of $175,000, Michael Milenski of the Long Beach Opera presented an extraordinarily daring, extraordinarily poignant production of Verdi’s daunting “Don Carlo”--in San Jose.

David Alden, the iconoclastic American director, ignored all the hallmarks of show-bizzy grand opera and staged the sprawling quasi-historical tragedy--using the familiar four-act Italian version--as if it were a stark, cruel, ultramodern, faintly Brechtian drama of ideas.

David Fielding, the British designer, set the action on a dangerously raked stage adorned with sunken traps and surrounded by towering bleached-white walls that blatantly offset the basic-black costumes of Suzanne Mess.

Fielding ignored the surface realities of time and place, forcing attention on the tormented protagonists. He dealt pervasively in abstraction, stylization and symbolism to suggest a surrealistic scheme of ominous shadows and glaring lights, of ghoulish inquisitors and hysterical mobs, of courtly puppets and military thugs.

To inhabit this disturbing nightmare of thwarted fidelity, intrigue and inevitable tragedy, Milenski assembled a cast comprised, for the most part, of young Americans who could seize the modern theatrical frame to probe the conflicts defined by Verdi and Schiller. Unfettered by common vocal narcissism and hoary stand-and-sing conventions, they threw themselves into the challenge with frightening urgency and obvious conviction.

At the head of this compelling ensemble, towered the King Philip II of Cesare Siepi, then a mere 61. A noble singing-actor of the old school, he revealed virtually undiminished vocal breadth and power. He offered an object lesson in dramatic truth and heroic economy, in basic style and histrionic focus.

If all had gone as hoped, this “Don Carlo” would have made its way from the Silicon Valley to Long Beach immediately in 1984. As is usual in the operatic world of the plastic lotus, however, financial problems intervened. The trip couldn’t be completed until Thursday night, when this most unusual “Don Carlo” finally opened at the Terrace Theater.

It wasn’t the same “Don Carlo” in all respects. Some of the theatrical immediacy got blurred in the vast reaches of the Long Beach cavern. The ultralive acoustics here seemed to avor the pit, and the conductor, George Cleve, seemed to favor forward sweep and big sounds over expressive expansion and dynamic shading.

Although David Alden’s basic production scheme had been retained, it was redirected and somewhat embellished this time by his twin brother, Christopher. A few of the macabre elements now invoked the unfortunate aura of a Halloween party, and the crucial Auto da Fe scene conjured awkward associations with an old-fashioned clam bake--the sacrificial heretics serving as the clams.

Still, the gutsy invention of the original concept, primitively lit by Marie Barrett, survived the trip and the passage of time.

The Long Beach cast contained two important newcomers. Dennis O’Neill, the British tenor who sang Elvino in the San Francisco “Sonnambula” last season, succeeded Vasile Moldoveanu in the title role. Jerome Hines, the all-American who had played the Grand Inquisitor to Siepi’s King at the opening of the Bing regime at the Met back in 1950, returned in place of Kevin Langan for the unique and terrifying confrontation that pits the basso of the church, as it were, against the basso of the state.

O’Neill sang with ringing ardor much of the time, with sturdy lyricism most of the time, with pitch problems some of the time, and with a disappointing reluctance to explore the impact of a mezza-voce or pianissimo. Dramatically, he (and Alden) reduced the erstwhile hero to a catatonic weakling plagued by occasional fits of epilepsy and/or frenzy.

Hines looked striking--incredibly tall and gaunt, powerfully nasty--as the ancient eclesiastical tyrant. He also proved that he can still make a mighty noise. However, after 35 years in this role (and, sometimes, in the role of the Inquisitor’s regal adversary), he still tends to deal in cliches and generalities, confusing bluster with fury, image with character.

The familiar members of the cast reawakened poignant impressions. Kathryn Bouleyn, a few unsupported top tones notwithstanding, brought extraordinary warmth, luster and sympathy to the arching legato phrases of the unhappy Queen. After a rather gingerly Veil Song, Katherine Ciesinski compelled admiration as an Eboli consumed by unbridled, destructive passion. Richard Stilwell cut a dashing figure and applied his light, burnished baritone to the idealistic stances of Rodrigo with telling affect.

The supporting cast included Jacob Will as a sonorous Friar, Alison England as a pert Tebaldo, and Virginia Sublett as a sweet if potentially strident Heavenly Voice.

The most memorable, most stimulating performance, however, remained Siepi’s Philip. Miraculously fresh in sound--apart from a couple of strained top notes late in the evening--the great Italian basso paced himself brilliantly and rose to the long-lined challenge of “Ella giammai m’amo” with incredible reserves of deep, mellow, resonant tone, with haunting poetic inflections and with the sort of bel-canto suavity one had feared was extinct.

He dominated the stage merely by standing still, stressed the advantage of economical character definition, exuded inherent dignity, vulnerability and honest pathos.

For once, the word definitive can be used with impunity.