Dance and Music Reviews : Cantata by Ted Peterson

Saturday night in Barnsdall Park’s Gallery Theater, 60 witnesses to the world premiere of Ted Peterson’s cantata, “Venus in Furs,” faced an innocuous, mildly entertaining work with decadent overtones. Avarice and obsession got subliminal treatment, cloaked in moderate lasciviousness and a dollop of depravity. “Venus” enlists vocal soloists, chorus, electric guitars, a dancer and film. The gratuitous shocker: an eyeball-gouging sequence from the 1928 Bunuel-Dali film “Un Chien Andalou.”

Musically, repetitious patterns constitute numbing concentration exercises for the performers--the minimalist spirit of Phil Glass hovers nearby. Mercifully, Peterson drones less, usually varying patterns before they nag and creating recognizable motifs for the main buzzwords of his setting: enjoy, slaves, pleasure . Adapted from Sacher-Masoch (the masochistic angle), the text is often defeated by the vocal writing. Umpteen high Cs make for bug-eyed sopranos, not intelligibility.

The opening and closing choruses of “Ah” suggest tribal chants, offsetting the text cleverly and rendering the piece cyclical. Countertenor (the sound of ultimate male excitement) confronting teasing dancer (no ecdysiast, she doffed only her coat) forms the piece’s faintly witty erotic core. Conductor Laurie Gurman, her small chorus and soloists George Sterne, Christine Sorenson and Timothy Krol performed devotedly.

This pick-up group accomplished Vaughan Williams’ a cappella “Elizabethan Partsongs” quite beautifully but didn’t pass muster in Mozart’s “Missa Brevis,” K. 192, accompanied by strings and organ.