OPERA REVIEW : Some Sonic Sendak at the Music Center

Ah, whimsy. Wistful whimsy. Sophisticated whimsy. Eager whimsy.

Whimsy with a message. Whimsy with a dark edge. Whimsy with hustling, bustling modern music bearing occasional in-jokes and clever quotations.

Ah, children’s whimsy designed for grown-ups. Heavy-handed whimsy.

Whimsy that loses something, perhaps, in translation from page to stage. Whimsy that tends, in any case, to get a bit ponderous in the vast open spaces of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Whimsy that is mimed in liberal cartoon style amid delirious decorations. Whimsy that is explained in detailed program synopses, then performed with decent diction in reasonable English by a cast of young, hard-working singing actors.

Whimsy that is finally echoed in redundant supertitles--in case anyone missed a syllable, in case anyone was put off by the unidiomatic word-setting, or in case anyone wanted to sing along. Where’s that bouncing ball, anyway?

Oh well. The idea was sweet.

For this year’s flirtation with modernism, Peter Hemmings and the Music Center Opera turned to a terrific trio: the neo-Romantic composer Oliver Knussen, the picture-book wizard Maurice Sendak, and the ever-inventive director Frank Corsaro. Their vehicles--successfully tried out in such locales as St. Paul, Brussels, London and New York--must be fondly familiar to anyone who had, or was, a kid in the 1960s or beyond.

“Higglety Pigglety Pop!” and “Where the Wild Things Are” may not yet rival “Cav” and “Pag” in universal popularity. The two little Scottish-American operas do, however, recount familiar, nearly irresistible adventures from the Hardly-Everland where a frustrated puppy dog can be a heldensoubrette and where amiable monsters can grumble quasi-Yiddish jive while scrambling barbershop harmonies.

“Higglety,” you will recall, is the saga of Jennie, a shaggy coloratura canine who has everything, but embarks on the eternal quest for more. Sendak allows the Sealyham terrier to find the meaning of life--or an unreasonable facsimile thereof--with the aid of a saucy maid, an obnoxious baby, a smart cat, a pushy pig and a basso-profondo lion who leads the way to salvation at the Mother Goose Theater.

The operatic version of the story is cute in its stubbornly obtuse way. It also may be a bit too long--ca. 70 minutes--for its cuteness.

Knussen’s gently dissonant score makes telling use of pastiche techniques, sprinkles a little Stravinsky amid second-hand echoes of Mozart and Haydn, and toys knowingly with shifting instrumental textures and splotches of color. The vocal lines, some of them electronically modified, savor safe arioso and Sprechgesang procedures.

The delightful designs fuse the best of the brilliantly naive traditions represented by the ancient Baroque theater at one extreme and the contemporary pop-up book at the other. Dramatic compulsion is compromised only by elaborate animal masks that confine faces to a single expression. Sendak remains a better illustrator, perhaps, than animator.

The Wild Things do their not-all-that wild things quicker, in about 40 minutes. One is grateful.

Max, the ever-naughty-boy hero, is sent to bed without his supper. Sanctioning juvenile immorality to an oddly agreeable degree, Sendak rewards the brat with a visit to the realm of modestly clodding monsters who, properly subdued, make him king (to strains of the “Boris Godunov” coronation). After a “Wild Rumpus” that in context looks and sounds tame, little Max gets homesick. He returns to his bedroom and another reward, a hot supper prepared by his forgiving mom.

Knussen creates some deft tantrum music, concocts a delicious sea interlude dominated by the solo horn, pays appropriate homage to obvious impressionist models, and frequently sustains a unifying style of his own despite the disparities. He even manages to understate the final cadence.

The music is witty when it isn’t merely busy. Occasionally it is poignant. Often it just thumps the gut.

The performances on Thursday inspired measured admiration rather than bona-fide rapture from a non-capacity audience. Don’t blame the artists.

Randall Behr enforced ample bravado and lucidity in the pit. Corsaro kept the action in amusing focus, respecting the musical impulses at every possible turn. Sendak’s sets and costumes, though scaled for the more intimate stages of Glyndebourne and Minnesota, oozed instant charm.

Cynthia Buchan, the Scottish mezzo-soprano, sang the ornate music of Jennie the dog with textual point and dynamic flair. She also moved with splendid muttish grace while smothered in her furry costume. Karen Beardsley swaggered and chirped adorably en travesti as Max.

These seasoned protagonists enjoyed appreciative support from assorted plants, creepers, crawlers and stompers as sung by Dale Wendel, Mel Whitehead, Greg Fedderly, Richard Bernstein, Marvellee Cariaga, Stephanie Vlahos, John Atkins and Peter van Derick. In some instances, the eye-rolling, tail-wagging, heart-pumping, tooth-clicking characters were doubled, most ably, by mimes: Laurie Witzkowski, Luis Campana, Greg Leier, Dean Hawthorne, Kim Larsen and Mike Borka.

Ah, anthropomorphic whimsy. . . .