STAGE REVIEW : ‘Oklahoma!’ At The Music Center : Is Musical Still a Classic Minus Dream Ballet?

“Oklahoma!” as opera fare?

What’s wrong with that? Where does it say it can’t be done? Isn’t it a musical theater classic? Sho’ is. Can’t it have a place in the operatic repertoire, in these days of “Sweeney Todd” at New York City Opera and of Opera Pacific’s various musical theater forays? Sho’ can.

The question: Is a classic that’s tampered with still a classic?

At the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion where the Music Center Opera has unveiled its spankin’ almost-new “Oklahoma!” (elements of this production were created two years ago for the Minnesota Opera and other companies), it is a pastorale with a hole in the middle.

The Dream Ballet that Agnes de Mille created for the original 1943 Broadway production of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s first full-fledged collaboration has been replaced here by choreographer Mary Jane Houdina’s equivalent of Dance 101. Elsewhere in this “Oklahoma!” Houdina’s choreography is rakish and lively enough, but in the ballet it blanches by unavoidable comparison.

This is the production’s major gaffe and a tone-setter for director Charles Abbott’s bland picture-postcard version of the show.

Abbott (who has worked in theater, musical and otherwise, more than he has in opera) has claimed that his approach to “Oklahoma!” isn’t different because the show is being done by an opera company. Yet something of an operatic approach bleeds through. There is a subliminal stasis, an element of tableau vivant to the production, that renders the results opulent to look at, but dramatically tame.

This does not impugn John Lee Beatty’s inspired storybook settings (joyously drenched in sun- or moonlight by Ruth Roberts) or his American Primitive drops, influenced by the paintings of Grant Wood and painted in primary colors. For what is “Oklahoma!” 47 years later, if not an ever more classic piece of Americana--part folk and fairy-tale, and part shaggy-dog story?

But under Abbott’s by-the-numbers direction, it materializes as a museum reproduction, minus its balletic centerpiece: All text, no subtext--lush, humorous, wistful, but a little flaccid. What you see is what you get: a contented, occasionally complacent staging that follows a brisk path of least resistance and where the acting takes a back seat to the singing. At least most of the time.

Thank heaven for the healthy infusion of musical comedy performers in the cast (for which one also must credit the director). With the major exception of opera baritone Rodney Gilfry as Curly, it is the singing actors (as opposed to the acting singers) who give the production its juice--starting with Jody Benson (last seen in these parts as Flora the Red Menace), a giggly strawberry dumb-blonde who lights up the stage as the pushover Ado Annie.

She’s a perfect match for Lara Teeter’s loose-limbed, thick-headed, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Will Parker, though one wonders why she has eyes for Larry Storch’s subdued Ali Hakim. Storch delivers a wily peddler, but no fox.

This goes double for Michael Gallup, whose Jud Fry is a boor and a bully rather than a threat. The absence of mystery in this characterization crucially weakens the production. Why would Laurey (played without much pizzazz by Rebecca Eichenberger) be attracted to this sulking hulk? (Martin Vidnovic’s stark and brooding portrayal in the splendid 1979 “Oklahoma!” revival at the Pantages set the benchmark for this role.)

Gilfry, on the other hand--the show’s other opera star--is a delicious Curly, playful, boyish, handsome . . . and, yes, curly. Vocally, he is, if anything, overqualified for the job--a capital singer who needs a body mike about as much as a third leg, and sounds seriously overmiked with one.

Except for Gallup, in fact (whom you would think would have Gilfry’s problem), everyone at Friday’s opening sounded overamplified to some degree or other (Jonathan Deans is listed as designer), with the rebellious sound system itself kicking in with an unceremonious grunt or two.

Jean Stapleton’s Aunt Eller is a brash and cartoonish addition to this rogues’ gallery, who has to muster all the presence she can to avoid being upstaged by a live horse. Curly rides in on one in the opening scene. It is one of those irresistible bad ideas directors sometimes get.

As horses go, this horse behaved impeccably. But one has to wonder about the priorities at work here: One horse, no De Mille ballet, abbreviated dances and a certain Indian Territory flatness of interpretation. What was that about doing the classics? . . .

At the Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., Tuesday, through Sunday, 8 p.m., with matinees Saturday and Sunday, 2. Ends Sunday. $8-$50; (213) 480-3232, (213) 972-7211).