ADAMS SINGS LIGHT OPERA ‘WIDOW’

Edie Adams, bless her, used to be the most delectable damsel in Dogpatch. She may well have been Ernie Kovacs’ better half in more ways than one. She is, without question, the greatest thing that ever happened to one of the most vile inventions of Western civilization, the cigar.

It would be nice, no doubt, to see her in a snazzy revival of “Annie, Get Your Gun.” Or perhaps the definitive Sister Eileen of yesteryear is ready to graduate to Auntie Mame. She has the right credentials.

None of these credentials, alas, predestine her for Franz Lehar’s “Merry Widow.”

Adams may be a very nice dame from Kingston, Pa., but she isn’t automatically convincing as the sophisticated, sensual, wise, whimsical, subtle Hanna Glawari. An aging Daisy Mae doesn’t inevitably go a-singin’ and a-waltzin’ in the Pontevedria of 1905.

Adams is gutsy, though. Give her that.

She agreed to this cruel adventure in anti-type casting for the Long Beach Civic Light Opera, which officially opened its Lehar extravaganza Saturday night at the Terrace Theater. What’s more, she did so on short notice, replacing Ann Blyth, who is recovering from hip surgery.

Adams strolls through the challenge with brash good humor. She sings some, if not all, of the prescribed notes. She recites the appropriate lines dutifully. She is, if nothing else, a trouper, a distinguished veteran of numerous show-bizzy wars, a perennial tough cookie.

But she doesn’t ooze a drop of charm here, either echt- Viennese or mock. She misses the erotic undertones. She isn’t chic, and she doesn’t know much about prima donnadom. In general, she seems to confuse making a personal appearance with projecting a compelling character.

The vocal line strains her scratchy resources--this, after all, is music that has graced such throats as Beverly Sills’, Joan Sutherland’s and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf’s. What’s more, Adams adds unnecessary injury to musical insult in the third act by interpolating “Meine Lippen, sie kuessen so heiss,” an aria from another Lehar operetta.

She leaves a gaping hole in the middle of what is, essentially, a lovely, stylish, agreeably old-fashioned production.

Zack Brown’s lavish sets and costumes, designed for the Washington Opera, offer witty evocations of a Jugendstil never-never land with flapper-elegance overtones. The fast and spiffy staging--originally credited to Peter Mark Schifter and now entrusted to Jack Bunch--savors the period humor, avoids the most obvious cliches and stops gratifyingly short of the hyper-banal.

The English version prepared by Ted and Deena Puffer of the Reno Opera is clever, remarkably faithful to the German original and eminently singable. And it is sung beautifully by most of the cast.

Edward Evanko, who inherited the romantic duties of Danilo from the bereaved Rod Loomis, brings to this difficult role a fine combination of bravado, ardor, sympathy and cynicism.

Kathy Knight simpers sweetly as the nearly naughty ingenue Valencienne, musters some nifty cabaret dancing in Dietrich drag at Maxim’s, and, in the ensembles, deftly delivers the high notes that lie beyond Adams’ reach. She finds a properly pompous, nicely restrained husband in Byron Webster as Baron Zeta; a stiff, tight-tenorino would-be lover in Jorge Lopez Y. as Camille.

The large, chronically spirited supporting ensemble is dominated by Zale Kessler as the crisp old ambassadorial factotum, Njegus.

Michael Phillips’ ubiquitous choreography can’t seem to decide if it wants to be pretty or funny. Though energetically performed, it often ends up being neither. Comparable problems plague the conductor, Steven Smith, who enforces maximum pizazz but slights the lyrical sentiment in the wonderful old score.

The biggest problem of all, however (apart from the overparted protagonist), is strictly mechanical. This show isn’t just amplified. It is over-over-overamplified.

The pit band sounds like a calliope, piped in from Valhalla. All the singers--well, almost all--sound like phony Flagstads and mega-Melchiors, blaring at us via a low-fi set with the volume turned up way too high.

The acoustical disorientation is aggravated by the fact that all the voices emanate from the same place: loud loudspeakers atop the proscenium. If one wants to know who happens to be singing at any given moment, one has to follow the primitive but useful spotlights.

So much for the joys of modern technology.