A Weekend at the Opera : ‘Trovatore’ at San Diego Civic Theatre

It was an odd weekend for opera in Southern California. Friday night, Costa Mesa mustered a “Fledermaus” that wasn’t funny. Saturday night, San Diego countered with a “Trovatore” that was.

The only crucial element missing in this terminally silly revival of Verdi’s chronically serious melodrama was a guest appearance by the Marx Brothers. Just about everything else on the stage of the Civic Theatre served the beguiling, unintentional cause of caricature.

Ming Cho Lee’s bargain-basement set, which had been resting peacefully for years in a local warehouse, tried to play all the action in the same bleak and fatuous courtyard. Someone apparently thought that the addition or subtraction of a ladder here, a fence there and a tree in the background would transform the locale from guard house to garden to gypsy-pipsy camp to cloister to ramparts to chapel to prison.

Fat chance.

The simple design unit should at least have sped the evening mercifully toward the final cadence. The need for long waits during scene changes, after all, had been eliminated. No such luck. Generous San Diego gave us three--count ‘em, three--intermissions.

The motley costumes came from a rental grab-bag. Jane Reisman’s lighting (or, at times, darkening) scheme tended toward bizarre exaggerations and sudden, unmotivated changes. The chorus, trained by Martin Wright, sang lustily despite the distraction of ill-tuned and ill-timed anvils.

Richard Gregson, the official director of lurches and lunges, moved his perfunctory non-actors around the stage as if he hadn’t read the infernal supertitles. The audience, unfortunately, did read them, and responded with a lot of laughing.

Susan Dunn as the presumably flamboyant heroine produced some nice, pearly tones but revealed the temperament of a statuesque milkmaid. Ruben Dominguez as the should-be macho hero struck awkward poses and, in general, acted as if he had bumbled in at the last moment from the wrong production.

Actually, he had done just that.

The original Manrico was to have been Giuseppe Giacomini. He withdrew months ago, reportedly in the wake of the sagging dollar.

His replacement, an obscure Hungarian gentleman named Janos B. Nagy, disappeared mysteriously after the dress rehearsal. The vague explanation from the company cited ill health.

Dominguez, the Venezuelan tenor remembered for a dubious Radames a few weeks ago in Costa Mesa, flew to the rescue, arriving the night before the opening. He seemed understandably disoriented. He also sounded hopelessly constricted, encountered severe intonation problems, and squealed a high C at the end of “Di quella pira” that proved memorable for all the wrong reasons.

The intrepid Verdian could savor fleeting virtues. Dolora Zajic as Azucena may have lacked dramatic focus, but she sang with overwhelming primitive force. Dunn may have tended to lose control of her top tones, and she evaded the longed-for pianissimi arches; still, she did reveal the rare resources of a genuine spinto , and she earned bonus points for restoring the cabaletta after the “Miserere.”

Jonathan Summers, an intelligent but lightweight Australian baritone, found himself miscast in the heavyweight duties of Luna. When he wasn’t straining for impact, he did provide some pleasant mezza-voce reflection.

Jeffrey Wells introduced a modest, macho-basso Ferrando. Jane Bunnell attracted positive attention in the tiny duties of Inez.

Thomas Fulton, the fluent but rather prim conductor, sometimes confused speed with excitement, grace with tension. He also tended to slight crucial rhythmic definitions.

And so it went. Up and down. Down and down.

“Trovatore” isn’t an easy opera. Everyone knows that. But this was ridiculous.