OPERA REVIEW : San Francisco Forces ‘Capriccio’ Into Flapper Era : Kiri Te Kanawa dominates a lavish production of Richard Strauss’ ‘conversation piece for music’ that is set in the 1920s, not 1777.

Richard Strauss’ “Capriccio,” which has been given a lavish new production in San Francisco, is hardly the composer’s most accessible opera.

Completed in 1942 amid the chaos of the Third Reich, it represents the aging composer’s final theatrical ode to a romanticism in decay. It is a fragile, thoughtful, sophisticated yet forbidding little philosophical debate that goes on for well over two hours.

It brims with clever arguments, nostalgic quotations and subtle in-jokes as it mulls, but refuses to answer, this earth-shattering question: Which comes first in opera--and in art and life--the word or the melody?

Significantly, Strauss didn’t even call this valedictory essay an opera. He preferred to label it a “conversation piece for music.”

For better or worse, it is a static conversation piece predicated on intimacy and elegance. It demands to be played in a small theater, where the smallest verbal and facial nuances can convey their own dramatic urgency. It demands the aura of finesse dictated by courtly Baroque manners.

Even under the best of circumstances--say in Rudolf Hartmann’s legendary production at the tiny old Residenztheater in Munich with Lisa della Casa in the central role--”Capriccio” is a difficult challenge. Clemens Krauss’ talky text, inspired by the uncredited Joseph Gregor, appeals more to the intellect than to the emotions. At 78, Strauss took a leisurely, circuitous route to his last, glorious final scene.

The current San Francisco staging--the first since the local premiere in 1963--suffers from basic communication problems. The cavernous War Memorial Opera House is too big. The German text represents an obstacle to audience involvement. The supertitles distract attention from the stage, and reduce comprehension to a reading experience.

Most damaging, perhaps, is John Cox’s chic but irrelevant decision to move the inaction from 1777 to the terrible 1920s. The introspective, essentially dignified Countess becomes a cool flapper. The crucial contemporary references to Gluck and the operatic reforms of the 18th Century become nonsense.

The director’s temporal distortions are compounded by glitzy costumes commissioned from a fashion designer, Gianni Versace, and by some awkward stage business. Cox raises the curtain prematurely and moves the string sextet from the orchestra pit to the Countess’ dark and empty salon. In the process, he destroys narrative logic. Later, he places the prop harpsichord so far upstage that Flamand becomes all but inaudible when he improvises the all-important sonnet at the keyboard.

Cox does create interesting character portraits, and he has an eye for telling detail. He paints pretty stage pictures within the gentle scenic splendors designed for a Brussels production by Mauro Pagano--whose untimely death three years ago is still mourned in the world of opera. In the final analysis, however, Cox seems to have miscalculated the delicate nature of the opera and blurred the crucial class distinctions. A coarse “Capriccio” must be an oxymoron.

Stephen Barlow, the young British conductor who inherited the baton from the late John Pritchard, conducted on Tuesday with lyrical verve and ample wit, if not with much refinement. He accompanied the endless conversations attentively but loudly, and stressed extrovert prose in the marvelous orchestral interludes.

The cast, though uneven, respected the fundamental ensemble values. It was dominated by Kiri Te Kanawa as the happily agonized Countess. She looked excruciatingly glamorous as she searched for the meaning of life in an invisible full-length mirror. She sang the closing monologue with arching, ethereal pathos. She also allowed a trace of vulgarity to mar a characterization that Strauss had marked with infinite nobility.

Both of her suitors were eloquently delineated. William Shimell as the passionately edgy yet vulnerable poet, Olivier, seemed a bit more persuasive, however, than Keith Olsen as the poised and confident composer, Flamand.

Victor Braun blustered sympathetically as La Roche, the practical man of the theater, although he could not produce the booming basso tones dictated by a tradition that began with the peerless Georg Hann. Hanna Schwarz exuded sensible erotic allure as the actress Clairon, one preposterous costume notwithstanding. Hakan Hagegard played the convivial Count for laughs, mangled the spoken dialogue and sang with nice baritonal point.

Michel Senechal made a sweet cameo appearance as Monsieur Taupe, the drowsy prompter. Reri Grist mugged shamelessly and sang a bit unsteadily as the Italian soprano (shades of “Rosenkavalier”), accompanied by a bel-canto tenor of staggering promise: Craig Estep.

Hans Hotter, who had taken a leading role at the world premiere nearly half a century ago, had been scheduled to return in the fleeting part of the major domo. He apparently had second thoughts, and the role was enacted with uppity cheer by Dale Travis.

Isabelle Creste and Jim Sohm danced an anachronistic ballet parody choreographed by Val Caniparoli. It proved most notable for the ballerina’s hideous cartoon costume and, in moments of extension, for a recurring crotch gag.

Strauss would not have been amused.