OPERA IN ORANGE COUNTY : MENOTTI STAGES A TRADITIONAL ‘LA BOHEME’

Completing its first season at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Saturday, Opera Pacific finally got around to a traditional grand opera: “La Boheme.”

It turned out to be very traditional, and very grand indeed. The audience loved it.

The audience loved it so much, in fact, that premature applause obliterated Puccini’s meticulously calculated cadences at the end of each big aria and at the end of each act.

A moment of appreciative silence would have been a far greater tribute, of course, to the work and to its performers. But conspicuous cultural consumption has become an American malady as common as poor little Mimi’s tuberculosis--and not just in Costa Mesa.

Bask in the popular arts. Start the ovation. Damn the composer.

Actually, one found two fine old sentimental composers at work here. In addition to Puccini himself, there was his would-be latter-day counterpart, Gian Carlo Menotti, who served as stage director.

Whether writing his own tear-jerkers or controlling the traffic patterns in someone else’s, Menotti has never been a believer in restraint. His “Boheme” enlists a very busy cast of thousands and very elaborate, very picturesque, very old-fashioned sets by Zack Brown from the Washington Opera (sensitively lit by John McLain).

Occasionally, Menotti allows the plight of the little seamstress with the heart of tarnished gold and her blindly idealistic lover to get lost amid the trivia. It is hard to keep one’s eyes on the principals when the scenery is screaming and the masses are teeming.

Sometimes the stage business contradicts the plot. The Bohemians’ huge garret is so cluttered with expendable junk that one questions Rodolfo’s priorities, if not his sanity, when he sacrifices the manuscript of his tragedy to fuel the stove.

Still, there are telling details. Mimi picks up a poem of Rodolfo’s and, entranced, reads it while getting to know--and love--him. There also are fussy details. Rodolfo and Marcello open the last act not trying desperately to work, as their words insist, but casually playing cards.

In general, Menotti has produced a lavish, attractive, superficially affecting, slightly mechanical “Boheme” that relentlessly prettifies the source. A more severe approach might have better served the realism that the director claims to seek. It certainly would have done more to enhance the inherent pathos.

Pathos was, in any case, a fragile and fleeting element here.

The ever-distracting and ill-timed supertitles constantly tempted the audience to regard the opera as a comedy.

Compounding the problem, the Segerstrom Hall acoustic made the orchestra sound brash and the voices harsh, especially as they echoed within the box set that encloses Acts I and IV. John Mauceri’s tempos, furthermore, tended toward the hectic. One longed, in vain, for mellowness.

Under the circumstances, the exceptionally youthful cast had to work hard to sustain sympathy.

Mimi was supposed to have been Diana Soviero of the Metropolitan. The kindly local management released her, however, so she could fulfill a more prestigious engagement at La Scala. In her place came a virtually unknown soprano, Katherine Luna.

She gave a thoughtful and intelligent performance, floating very pretty pianissimos in the “Addio” and death scene yet rising to the full-throated climaxes with easy fervor. Debut nerves may account for tones that emerged a bit breathy on occasion and for a characterization that remained a bit tentative.

Jerry Hadley, the Rodolfo, is one of the great white hopes among the post-Pavarotti generation of tenors. He is handsome, lithe, slender, and an attentive actor. His voice--remarkably sweet, light, bright and pure--can float deftly to high C.

Under pressure, however, he tends to push the tone sharp. One wonders if he is wise to subject his precious vocal resources to the rigors of Puccini right now. The bel-canto repertory might be more rewarding and less dangerous.

Timothy Noble, the mellifluous, warm-hearted, somewhat ponderous Marcello, awakened memories of Leonard Warren. Karen Huffstodt complemented him as a tough and pretty Musetta who avoided the usual chirping sex-bomb cliches.

Kenneth Cox ennobled the utterances of Colline with a plangent basso profondo. Jeff Mattsey introduced a nicely assertive Schaunard, wearing a somber costume more likely to be associated with Colline. Italo Tajo, himself an erstwhile Colline, capitalized on the gentle comic routines of Benoit and Alcindoro.

The chorus, prepared by Maurice Allard, made a mighty noise where needed, but did odd things to the Italian text. Menotti, incidentally, joined the milling throng of quaint Parisians at the Cafe Momus for an unheralded personal appearance, Hitchcock style.