DANCE REVIEW : ‘Andalucia’ a Generous Show of Spanish Music Theater

In these putatively multicultural, multimedia times, you might imagine a strong role for zarzuela. Ironically, however, the multifarious music theater of Spain had a more consistent presence locally a century ago than now.

We must be thankful, then, for the visits of Antologia de la Zarzuela. Full stagings of masterpieces from the three-act repertory would be nice, but these vivid Greatest Hits-type packages from director Jose Tamayo are always welcome.

Monday, Antologia de la Zarzuela turned up at the Greek Theatre for a largely unheralded performance of its latest show, “Andalucia,” which had its premiere this summer at the Seville Expo ’92.

The regional theme held the generous program together effectively. Since the anthology format precludes much dramatic context anyway, the reliance on one-act sainetes and genero chico pieces--though ignoring the greatest creations in the form--made stage sense.

We actually got much of the music from “La Tempranica,” by native Sevillano Jeronimo Jimenez. Wagons and other props set up the Gypsy encampment, framing a comic trousers bit by Aurora Frias, a rather stentorian lullaby from veteran baritone Antonio Ramallo, and some of Alberto Lorca’s swirling, generic choreography.

The accompaniment throughout the program was an odd, touring compromise of live woodwinds and brass with taped strings, capably coordinated by conductor Dolores Marco. Everything was amplified, of course, with variable results.

Surprisingly, solos often suffered more from sound system vagaries than did the ensemble numbers. Ascension Gonzalez barely had the soprano display aria from “El Barbero de Sevilla” under control, without the electronic distortion. She fared much better in Turina’s “Cantares,” which was also elegantly and quietly staged.

Soprano Milagros Martin provided the greatest feeling for character, as opposed to the mannerism that beset much of the solo singing and dancing. She projected much irony in the Carceleras from “Las Hijas del Zebedeo” by Chapi, and even greater nuance in the duet from Penella’s “El Gato Montes,” ably supported by lyric tenor Antonio Adame.

Not everything in the show was new. The dance from Jimenez’s “La Boda de Luis Alonso” looked exactly as it had in Pasadena in 1988 or Madrid in 1985, though it now appeared in a conflation with the earlier “El Baile de Luis Alonso.”

Similarly, excerpts from Falla’s “La Vida Breve” and “El Duo de la Africana” by Fernandez Caballero returned in larger contexts. The weird and tacky final medley cobbled together from “Granada” and Lecuona’s “Malaguena,” relevant only in geographic references, proved the nadir of the new ideas.