MUSIC REVIEW : MINI-DRAMAS’ EMOTION IS LOST

San Diego Symphony music director David Atherton ushered the faithful into the rarefied realm of 20th-Century chamber opera Thursday night, but to judge from the size of the crowd, symphony patrons were more eager to stay home and play cards than to come out and hear Samuel Barber’s witty one-act “A Hand of Bridge.” From the claustrophobic pathos of Francis Poulenc’s “La Voix Humaine” to the acerbic social satire of Kurt Weill’s “Mahagonny Songspiel,” Atherton provided an urbane sampler of modern maladies and preoccupations.

According to guest stage director Marcus Overton, the operas’ staging was intended to be minimal--in “Mahagonny” it consisted of little more than a projected green moon and six stools--but the singing by this imported cast of six British vocalists unfortunately followed suit. Coupled with cautious pacing and constrained movement on Symphony Hall’s cavernous stage, the emotional impact of these three mini-dramas fell short of its potential.

There were, however, a few moments of dramatic resonance. In Weill’s “Mahagonny Songspiel,” mezzo-soprano Linda Hurst projected the necessary ironic bravado--especially in her half of the “Alabama-Song”-- to capture the composer’s earthy cabaret inflections. And baritone Omar Ebrahim burst out of his character’s suburban straitjacket in “A Hand of Bridge” with a conviction of his omnivorous sexual fantasies. But most of the singing was too correct and restrained either to move or to persuade.

Although soprano Elizabeth Gale brought a great deal of dramatic credibility to the sole character in Poulenc’s “La Voix Humaine”--an embarrassingly pre-liberated woman who has just been jilted by her lover of five years--she did not command the stage vocally. Even in the orchestra’s thinnest textures, it dominated and frequently overwhelmed the singer. Gale’s articulation of the translated English text sparkled, but her vocal projection showed not even a hint of luster.

The orchestra filled the typically luxurious Poulenc score with sensuous colors. Atherton was at top form in the Poulenc, deftly building its climaxes and gently indulging its sentimental, bittersweet progressions. With a stronger soprano, it would have been a truly memorable performance.

Atherton’s interpretation of Weill piece, six songs and a few instrumental interludes that became the basis of his later full-scale opera “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny,” exalted textural refinement and nuance, removing all the satiric bite of the composer’s amalgam of popular song idiom with flinty neo-classical orchestration. From the vocalists Atherton coaxed a suave madrigalian blend that was closer to an English cathedral choir school than to a 1920s Berlin cabaret. And Michael Feingold’s smooth translation of the Bertolt Brecht lyrics missed the vernacular flavor of the two “Mahagonny” songs Brecht wrote in his unique, stilted English.

The brief “A Hand of Bridge,” with each player seated at his own card table, served as a droll curtain-raiser to the “Mahagonny Songspiel.” The other singers heard on the program included tenors Neil Jenkins and Joseph Cornwell, and bass Terry Edwards.

This evening of staged opera in Symphony Hall proved that the room is more than amenable to such performances. The orchestra can be clearly heard from the shallow pit, although for some reason, the room does not favor lighter voices as well as it projects and enhances the delicate pianissimo playing of the strings.