Opera : A Rewritten ‘Jonathan Wade’ in West Coast Premiere

“It is over and we have lost,” intones the chorus, impersonating Civil War survivors, in the first scene of “The Passion of Jonathan Wade,” Carlisle Floyd’s opera of the American Reconstruction period.

It is a marvel of an opening, because it makes plain in musical as well as textual terms the desolation of a defeated people left without hope. And it does so swiftly, poetically, without redundant words or wasted musical time.

Not all of the rest of this virtually new, three-hour opera--a score 80% rewritten, according to the composer, since the premiere of its first version, in 1962--maintains the pungency and theatrical power of the opening scene.

Yet much of it works, hits its mark and touches the watcher. The composer of “Susannah” and “Of Mice and Men,” knows a lot about reaching his audience.

As a piece of tight dramatic action, “Jonathan Wade” has considerable potency; as a work of music, it is respectable but uninspired.

An all-purpose, post-Romantic musical idiom, not unlike those of other mainstream American operatic composers--Barber, Menotti, Pasatieri--informs this solid and well-constructed work. Yet, except for the occasional frisson, Floyd seldom individualizes that idiom.

We will let musicologists of the future analyze and dissect this composer’s shrewd use of ethnic and folk elements--Act II closes with a wonderful spiritual woven into the larger musical fabric, for instance. For the casual (i.e., merely interested) listener, Floyd’s melodies here are handsome and functional, if not memorable. The much-admired operatic composer, now 64, maintains his craft, but sometimes seems to lose touch with his muse.

The opening-night performance in Civic Theatre, introducing the opera to the West Coast--it was given, in this new version, in Houston in January, in Miami last month--came off smoothly.

Gunther Schneider-Siemssen’s imposing and evocative sets and lighting, using projections most resourcefully, indicate the squalor and poverty of the postwar period. Allen Charles Klein’s stylized costumes support the visual effect (the $180,000 cost of set designing and construction was shared by four companies, those of Houston, Miami, San Diego and Seattle, where the production will be given in the fall of 1992).

Musical duties seem to be in caring hands. Irish conductor Kenneth Montgomery, in his San Diego debut, leads his assembled forces--including a game but unpolished pit orchestra--with authority, indicating the probable aural transparency of future performances. The large but unwieldy chorus, trained by Martin Wright, delivers Floyd’s own texts reliably most of the time.

On Saturday, before an audience distinguished by a large number of visiting opera-production professionals attending an Opera America meeting, the cast was dominated, and the show was stolen, by Debria Brown as Nicey, a stereotypical Aunt Jemima role, but one that includes several emotional and tuneful moments of great impact.

Brown, who could teach Jessye Norman something about sincerity, made the most of those moments, without of course upstaging her colleagues or oversinging. And, in the final bows, the audience gave her a standing ovation.

Julian Patrick (Judge Townsend), Sheryl Woods (Celia), Erich Parce (Jonathan Wade), Eric Perkins (Lt. Patrick) and Joseph Evans (Lucas Wardlaw) inhabited their roles with authority, acted convincingly and made the composer’s sometimes very low-lying vocal lines seem natural.

Even before it goes to Seattle in 1992, “Jonathan Wade” will probably be heard of again. It deserves at least that much.