OPERA REVIEW : A Rewarding Trip With Marilyn Horne

Marilyn Horne has been enjoying camping trips to Algiers, or an unreasonable Italianate facsimile thereof, for a long time. She has a very good travel agent: Gioachino Rossini.

The diva from Bradford, Pa., via Long Beach first ventured the florid flights, the comic indulgences and amorous pretenses of “L’Italiana in Algeri” at the modest (now defunct) San Francisco Spring Opera in 1964. She was probably 30 at the time, though a few unkind encyclopedists regard that statistic as an understatement.

A short-lived enterprise called the Los Angeles Opera brought the quasi-Algerian Horne home to the Music Center in 1966. Soon thereafter she belonged to the world.

A few grouses--this one, for instance--have occasionally muttered in their beards that the wide-ranging mezzo-soprano tended toward vulgarity when she exulted in her gallon-jug chest tones, and that her pitch sometimes sagged under pressure. No one could deny her virtuosity and vivacity, however, or her daring.

Almost single-throated, Horne proved that coloraturas need not have high voices. In the process, she expanded our knowledge and understanding of a vastly rewarding, unjustly neglected, bel-canto repertory.

At this stage of her career, she could easily rest on well-earned laurels. She could grace a rocking chair, write some more spicy memoirs, teach. If she so desired, she could reduce her stage duties to the special chores associated with operatic crones, hags and maids.

That doesn’t seem to be Marilyn Horne’s style. This summer, helping San Francisco celebrate the Rossini bicentennial, she has returned once more to the mellifluous musing and clever scheming of Isabella, Rossini’s Italian girl. This heroine, she says in a program interview, “is right up there among the top two or three roles that I have sung in my whole career.”

She is scheduled to repeat the assignment soon in Naples, Monte Carlo and London. It seems unlikely, however, that America will witness another Algerian excursion. Horne is talking these days about “throwing in the towel.”

It may seem foolish to examine her “Italiana” of 1992 within the perspective of 1964. In this case, however, the comparison isn’t odious.

Horne’s unique vocal equipment has not escaped the natural impact of the passing years. Her top extension seems to be shrinking. Her power has been reduced a bit and her timbre has lost some of its plush edge.

But there are compensations. She sings more cautiously now, and perhaps more tastefully. She doesn’t descend to basso-profondo imitations just for the fun of it, and she doesn’t let irrelevant decorations obscure basic contours.

Her fabled agility remains remarkable, and her seamless legato astonishing. She still commands a ravishing pianissimo, and she continues to articulate the Italian text with sly insinuation. Moreover, her new-found physical restraint--perhaps attributable to recent knee surgery--serves as a theatrical advantage.

Wednesday night, Lotfi Mansouri and the San Francisco Opera surrounded their still mischievous if muted prima donna with a pretty production and a relatively strong supporting cast. Rossini, a mere lad of 21 when he created this delightfully complex farce, was well served.

The decors and action scheme had been created for the Met by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle in 1973--15 years before his untimely death. The cut-out sets look a little shabby now, some of the costumes a little coy. The eunuch chorus, outfitted with commedia dell’arte masks and false bellies, pushes cuteness toward the brink.

Nonetheless, one has to admire the essential elegance, the symmetrical simplicity and the abiding wit of the stage pictures, not to mention the pervasive absence of buffo excess. Ponnelle always avoided second-hand caricatures--at worst, he invented his own--and Sonja Frisell has guarded the spirit if not the letter of his aesthetic law with resourceful respect.

Making his local debut in the pit, Donato Renzetti accompanied the singers sympathetically. He obviously knows when it is safe to lead and when it is wise to follow. He also knows how to coax graceful phrasing, crisp momentum and transparent textures from a sometimes recalcitrant orchestra.

Wonder of wonders, the singers interacted as if ensemble virtues were as gratifying as star turns. For once, even the tenor turned out to be a positive theatrical force.

Frank Lopardo mustered rare comic bravado for the heroic maneuvers of Lindoro. He mastered the stratospheric vocal challenge honorably, if without the finesse to bridge an almost raucous forte and an almost inaudible croon.

Simone Alaimo swaggered with sweet self-mockery as the handsome, faux-ferocious, light-voiced Mustafa, bey of Algiers, earning admiration even when he could only approximate the basso fioriture. Alfonso Antoniozzi won all hearts as a befuddled, bookish, oddly youthful Taddeo whose stylish baritone recalled the young Rolando Panerai.

Dale Travis as Haly, the harmless captain of the harem guard, sang his spurious aria with sprightly panache. Janet Williams simpered pertly, if blandly, as the Bey’s temporarily unwanted wife, Elvira, competently seconded by Catherine Keen as her contralto confidante.

The house wasn’t sold out. But those who came cheered, with good reason.