MUSIC REVIEW : Chicago Opera--Success in Two Flavors

Opera in Chicago comes in two flavors: exotic and ordinary.

Right now, the Windy City--a very cold Windy City--is agog over a daringly unorthodox production of tired old “Tannhauser.” Peter Sellars, enfant terrible of musical theater and incipient director of the Los Angeles Festival, has decided to rethink Wagner’s romantic fable in contemporary socio-sexual terms.

The titular minstrel knight, we are told, bears a striking resemblance to one Jimmy Swaggart. The Venusberg is a sleazy motel, and the goddess of love a hard-working hooker. The Hall of Song recalls the Crystal Cathedral, and the fallen hero finds a salvation, of sorts, within the sacred portals of LAX. More about all that after the performance tonight.

The unconventional “Tannhauser” is hardly without local precedent. Sellars has concocted a delirious Mitsubishi-era “Mikado” here. Liviu Ciulei shocked some delicate sensibilities with Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” in 1983. Last season saw a controversial production of Berg’s “Lulu” by Yuri Lyubimov, the quasi-revolutionary defector from the Taganka Theater in Moscow. Chicago has taken the minimalism of Philip Glass’ “Satyagraha” in trendy stride.

Much of the time, however, the company is content to cook with water. Verdian pots boil here just as they do at the Met and in San Francisco, in Treviso and Palermo, in Ulm and Mannheim.

The performance of “La Traviata” Wednesday night offered a case in point. It wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t interesting.

Pier Luigi Pizzi’s surprisingly unimaginative sets and costumes, which date back to 1970, looked cheap and worn. The action scheme, credited to Giulio Chazalettes, looked haphazard.

Bruno Bartoletti, artistic director of the company, conducted with a reassuring sense of tradition. Unfortunately, that tradition included all but one of the time-dishonored cuts (Alfredo was allowed a stingy anticlimactic verse of his cabaletta). The orchestra sounded rough and listless. In general, solid routine sufficed where one hoped for passion or sublime lyricism, or both.

The stage was dominated, sometimes for the wrong reason, by the robust, occasionally strident Violetta of Anna Tomowa-Sintow. She was partnered by an odd couple of Germonts: Jerry Hadley as a lightweight Alfredo and Juan Pons as a ponderous Giorgio. The comprimarios turned out to be faceless if not voiceless.

Still, audience enthusiasm ran high. That seems to be par for the Chicago Lyric. The Deco splendors of the Civic Opera House may be fading, but at least 96% of its 3,600 seats will be filled for the eight-opera, 64-performance season that ends on Feb. 3.

Part of the euphoria must be attributed, no doubt, to the resident public-relations wizard, Danny Newman. The real operatic hero on Wacker Drive, however, is a heroine: Ardis Krainik of Manitowoc, Wis.

The former mezzo-soprano--she once portrayed Renata Tebaldi’s mother in “Andrea Chenier”--began her administrative career as a secretary to Carol Fox, who had helped found the company in 1954. When poor health, impending fiscal disaster and artistic eccentricity forced Fox to step down as general director in 1979, Krainik was ready to step up.

Step up she did. With good cheer, common sense, artistic invention and tough frugality, she has cast her company as Avis opposite the Hertz of the Met. It hasn’t hurt, of course, that Chicago’s rise has coincided with San Francisco’s decline. The gushing support of the local press shouldn’t be discounted either.

Los Angeles, with the upstart Music Center Opera off and zooming, must observe the Chicago success story with more than casual interest. The companies share similar goals. This season they actually share productions of Richard Strauss’ “Salome” and Rossini’s “Tancredi.” And it is only a matter of time before they will share the provocative innovations of Peter Sellars.

“Nixon in China” looms.