CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW : Plenty to Smile About at Concert : Music: The Kingston Mainly Mozart Festival opens with lively performances that live up to the composer’s spirited sense of humor.

Scholars protested when the popular movie “Amadeus” portrayed their revered Mozart as an oversexed prankster.

And Tom Hulce’s cacophonous cackle drove them up the wall.

But, even if the film exaggerated Mozart’s penchant for humor and frivolity, there is ample evidence for his affinity to comedy.

This evidence includes Thursday’s opening concert of the Kingston Mainly Mozart Festival at the Spreckels Theatre, which celebrated the composer’s comic Muse with a semi-staged performance of “The Impresario,” K. 486, a one-act comedy-with-music that pokes fun at singers and operatic convention.

The festival’s music director, David Atherton, wisely selected New Yorker music critic Andrew Porter to provide a fresh translation of the work (originally written in German as “Der Schauspieldirektor”) and cajoled San Diego Opera general director Ian Campbell to play the impresario. A good time, as they say, was had by all.

Porter provided an agreeable translation of this lightweight bauble, composed while Mozart was completing his comic masterpiece “Le Nozze di Figaro.” It is no surprise that “The Impresario’s” final quartet sounds like a respectable but discarded “Figaro” sketch. Porter’s version of “The Impresario” cleverly dispensed with the libretto’s superfluous dialogue and added his own genial persona as narrator. Campbell did his best to impersonate a tough-minded opera chief attempting to engage a trio of singers with more ego than talent. He also successfully sang a few lines in unaccustomed baritone range. (Before becoming an opera administrator, Campbell was a tenor with the Australian Opera company.)

The three young singers--sopranos Candace Goetz and Pamela Menas, and tenor Kevin Anderson--formed a euphonious ensemble and clearly relished caricaturing the flamboyant, self-promoting demeanor of their caste. Though her words were difficult to discern, Goetz displayed a fluid coloratura with a slight dramatic edge. Menas’ diction was more understandable, but she negotiated her fioritura uncomfortably. Despite her larger voice, she lacked Goetz’s clear focus. Anderson’s fresh, well-projected lyric tenor suited his role as mediator between the dueling prima donnas.

Porter’s straightforward action at stage edge in front of the orchestra properly emphasized the drama’s playful humor without need for set or elaborate costumes. The 40-member chamber orchestra under Atherton gave the singers sympathetic support and played the familiar opera overture with spirit and polish.

Atherton opened the concert with a good-humored reading of Mozart’s Serenata Notturna, K. 239. The British maestro kept the textures appropriately light and airy, but the string ensemble’s sonority was a bit thin. Perhaps after the orchestra plays together over the 10-day festival, its ensemble sound will gain some depth.

Concertmaster William Preucil’s incisive, effervescent solos set the pace for the other string soloists, and timpanist James Plank deftly engaged the witty dialogue with the first violin.

It took pianist Gregory Allen the entire first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A Major, K. 488, to warm up. His seamless passage work could not have been neater, but such monochromatic precision did not bring this sunny Mozart movement to life. Atherton coaxed a laudable degree of warmth from the orchestra in the emotionally rich middle movement, but Allen remained distant.

In the final rondo, however, Allen caught fire with a brisk tempo and crisp, bright articulations that illumined the entire musical landscape. Had he found comparable spirit for the opening movement, it would have been a concerto performance to cherish.

* SAN DIEGO PROFILE: For a look at performer Gregory Allen, please see the San Diego Spotlight column. F2