OPERA REVIEW : Brussels Brings Mozart’s ‘La Finta Giardiniera’ to Brooklyn

New York likes its opera grand, loud and comfortable. This is Met city.

This is the place where the voices are usually more important than the music, and the music is more important than the drama.

This is the place where adventure, no matter how trendy, tends to be dangerous. This is the place where innovation is instantly suspect, where introspection seems superfluous and ensemble values tend to be unreasonable abstractions.

Under the circumstances, it wasn’t too surprising that Mozart’s “La Finta Giardiniera,” imported by the Brooklyn Academy of Music from the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie of Brussels, received a lukewarm reception from the New York press.

“La Finta Giardiniera”? Mozart finished this sprawling dramma giocoso when he was only 19. It is generally regarded as a minor masterpiece, at best.

One reads about it, but hardly ever gets to see it. If performed uncut, as it was here, it lasts 4 1/2 hours--about as long as “Siegfried.”

Musically, it is predicated on a series of Baroque formulas and stereotypes. Or so, at first, it seems.

The quasi-comic libretto, questionably attributed to Giuseppe Petrosellini, resembles a formidable jumble. It abounds in convoluted confusions involving heroic intrigues, quaint masquerades, amorous imbroglios and multiple mad scenes.

It is easy to accuse Mozart of painting by the numbers here. Too easy.

Just when one thinks the path is obvious, he takes off in an unexpected direction. The melodic flights can be commonplace one moment, deliriously original the next. Sudden harmonic shifts suggest wry detours in the dramatic progress.

Beneath the pervasive comic conventions one discerns the threat of bitterness and the hint of tragedy. There are ample previews here of such coming attractions as “Cosi fan Tutte” and “Figaro,” even “Don Giovanni.”

The Brussels production, first mounted at the tiny Theatre Royal du Parc in 1986, has been honed to a fine polish after more than 50 performances in such locales as Vienna, Salzburg, Berlin, Antwerp and Amsterdam. It is sophisticated, thoughtful and uncompromising.

Sometimes soothingly bright and often disturbingly bleak, it stands as a prime example of modern musical theater as practiced in the better European houses. It demands intense concentration as well as generous stamina.

The local critics found it mildly pretty. They complained, with some justification, about its length. Some lamented the absence of stellar singers. A few were mystified by the contemporary anachronisms in the staging. One writer was offended by sight of a soprano who didn’t happen to shave under her arms.

On Saturday night, a visitor approached the second of three performances at the Majestic Theater with some trepidation. The house, an expensively scraped-down movie palace, is a chic and uncomfortable Post-Modern ruin. Peter Brook appropriated it for the local incarnation of his “Mahabharata.” Luckily, the size--900 seats--is right for intimate Mozart.

And, luckily, the Brussels performance was right. It may have stressed the neuroses of contemporary Angst to a degree unsupported by the generally sunny score. It may have allowed stylistic liberties that must disturb historic purists. Nevertheless, it revealed a consistent, provocative, illuminating perspective.

Sylvain Cambreling conducted with a splendid combination of musical grace and theatrical verve. A 26-piece orchestra from Brussels executed his orders with high spirits if low finesse.

Karl-Ernst Herrmann designed the stylized forest park that served as a magical, amazingly flexible set. Together with his wife, Ursel Herrmann, he also devised the brashly tragicomic, eventually poetic staging scheme.

The multinational cast functioned as an integrated team, though hardly as a team of nonentities. Joanna Kozlowska as the countess disguised as the titular gardener, introduced a soprano of limpid purity, striking agility and arching pathos. One would like to hear her as Fiordiligi. Elzbieta Szmytka, as the lovesick maid, sang with piercing brilliance and proved once and for all that the perfect soubrette need never rely on pert soubrette mannerisms. One would like to hear her as Blondchen.

Ugo Benelli, the veteran bel-canto tenor, brought a crisp sense of self-mockery to the deranged platitudes of the Podesta. Marek Torzewski managed to vacillate sympathetically between character and caricature as the amorous count, despite some meek vocalism. Malvina Major complemented him as the flamboyant, initially prissy Arminda.

Lani Poulson wore her mustache and trousers with elan as the knightly Ramiro, and sang with impetuosity worthy of a fine Cherubino. Rusel Smythe played the wily servant with baritonal irony that clearly pointed in the direction of Figaro.

Lurking about the odd midsummer shadows and silently commenting on the eternal foolishness of these mortals was a witty little figure invented by the Herrmanns and deliciously mimed by Mireille Mosse. She functioned as a wondrous, other-worldly fusion of usher, stage manager, living prop and bemused spirit of Eros. Somehow, she also managed to remain unobtrusive.

The audience shrank appreciably as the evening wore on. The hardy souls who survived for the final curtain, however, mustered a thunderous ovation. In Brooklyn, attention had been paid.