OPERA REVIEW : Capturing the Spirit of History : Rarity: Seldom performed ‘Mother of Us All’ blends Virgil Thompson’s music with Gertrude Stein’s prose in an opera about suffragette Susan B. Anthony.

A younger American composer once described the late Virgil Thomson’s music as “enduring, hard, and polished as the Methodist church pew upon which his forebears must have sat.” Attending a performance of Thomson’s opera “The Mother of Us All” adds another meaning to the “hard church pew” characterization. This tribute to suffragette leader Susan B. Anthony seen through the feminist ideology and quirky prose of librettist Gertrude Stein calls for the patience of well-practiced pew-sitting.

Music director Thomas Nee and the La Jolla Civic-University Orchestra deserve a standing ovation for undertaking this rarely performed opera gem, even if the uneven UC San Diego production did not warrant such enthusiastic approbation. Presenting “The Mother of Us All” in a university setting, by the way, seemed particularly fitting, since Columbia University commissioned the opera and gave the first performance in 1947. Unlike the typical opera menagerie of suicidal sopranos and tenors who imbibe love potions, the cast list of “The Mother of Us All” is studded with sturdy figures right out of a college history text.

Friday’s opening night performance of “The Mother of Us All” at Mandeville Auditorium surely captured the spirit--a slightly balmy historical pageant--of the Thomson-Stein collaboration. But the pace frequently sagged because too few of the large cast of nearly 20 singers understood how to enliven Thomson’s bare-bones melodies. Hardly more lyrical than recitative, Thomson’s deceptively simple melodic writing and no-nonsense orchestration prefigured today’s trendy minimalism by half a century.

Chief among those who sang without a Thomson clue was Martha Jane Weaver in the role of Susan B. Anthony. Weaver’s stoic declamation and impassive mien froze her character in a pose as forbidding as the harsh Victorian photographs of the celebrated suffragette. Weaver appeared to take little pleasure in the whimsy of Stein’s prose, which made her vocal delivery sound both labored and unfocused. In her more reflective soliloquies, however, Weaver did use her matronly mezzo-soprano voice to spin out some appropriately warm, comforting phrases.

Fortunately, other more enlightened singers brightened the stage whenever the unpredictable and illogical plot--a sequence of political rallies and decorously amorous encounters in an unspecified park--spit them front and center. Bass Michael Morgan sang with full-voiced authority, fusing grandeur and humor as a lanky, stovepipe-hatted Daniel Webster. Morgan was paired with soprano Laurie Romero, whose Angel More sparkled with vocal allure and more spunk than angels are usually expected to display.

Ken Anderson imbued Jo the Loiterer, a confused and disenfranchised Everyman character, with dignity and sympathy. His high lyric baritone moved with ease from dulcet pleading to expressive ardor for his betrothed, Indiana Elliot, demurely sung by soprano Ruth Arnett. Aptly cast as the coy Constance Fletcher, soprano Ann Chase combined elegant lines with impeccable diction. As her reluctant suitor John Adams, tenor Bruce Johnson matched Chase’s graceful elocution. Daniel Leal’s stentorian tenor made a striking Andrew Johnson, and soprano Patricia Minton Smith found a convincing, mother-hen demeanor for the part of Gertrude Stein. (Neither Stein nor Thomson were too proud to exclude their own personae from the opera’s plot.)

Nee kept his orchestra on the mark with an unwavering pulse and clear beat. The players acquitted themselves admirably, giving one of their cleanest performances in recent memory. Stage director Mary Nee’s stylized movement mitigated the score’s static tendencies and used Johnny Coleman’s single set, a small bandstand surrounded by movable park benches, with fluid ease. Kitty Pappas’ period costumes were attractive, and Hannes Kling’s thoughtful lighting provided sorely needed variety to the austere stage.

Presenting “The Mother of Us All,” director Thomas Nee and his crew have thrown down the gauntlet. Who will pick up the challenge and present the first Thomson-Stein opera collaboration, “Four Saints in Three Acts”?