Opera : Cheap Pearls for Bizet From San Diego Company

It should have been called “The Road to Ceylon.” It cried out pathetically for the inspiring services of Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour.

But this wasn’t a wacky comedy set on some phony-exotic picture-postcard island. At least it wasn’t supposed to be. This was Bizet’s tragic “Les Pecheurs de Perles,” a.k.a. “The Pearl Fishers,” as staged Saturday night by the not-very-enterprising San Diego Opera.

Darren Scott Maynard’s bargain-basement set, a flimsy jungle-paradise unit borrowed from Minnesota, looked cheap but ugly. Marjorie McCown’s hand-me-down hootchy-kootch costumes--already deplored in Costa Mesa, Los Angeles and at the New York City Opera--could delight only a navel fetishist with low standards.

Jonathon Pape’s traffic patterns, up and down some odd flights of papier-mache steps, did little to illuminate this creaky saga of love, hate, friendship, rivalry, sacrifice, tribal ritual and mystical mumbo-jumbo among the innocent Brahmin fisherfolk of let’s pretend antiquity. Bill Cratty’s mock-ethnic gotta-dance-dance-dance embellishments, clumsily executed, suggested interpolations from ancient Las Vegas. Under the kitschy circumstances, it would be petty to even begin to worry about theatrical credibility.

Ian Campbell, the paterfamilias of local opera, obviously didn’t lavish much money, or even much thought, on this project. Nevertheless, he did assemble an excellent cast of obscure, youngish singers, and in Karen Keltner, the resident maestra, he found a conductor warmly sympathetic to the French romantic idiom. Although the staging teetered beyond the brink of cartoon distortion, the musical compensations were reassuring.

Patrick Power, a New Zealand tenor well remembered for Rossini’s Almaviva in San Francisco a few seasons back, sustained the lyrical flights of the wide-eyed hero with a welcome combination of freshness, finesse and ringing fervor. He opted against the high ending of “Je crois entendre encore” (a climax sanctioned by tradition if not by Bizet) but floated the long, graceful lines with constantly affecting grace.

It might be noted, incidentally, that despite puffy allusions to the contrary in official San Diego publicity materials, Power has never been engaged by the Metropolitan Opera. He may deserve to sing with that prestigious company but thus far his only claim to fame at Lincoln Center has involved a fleeting gig on tour with the Royal Ballet.

Michael Lewis, an Australian making his U.S. debut, introduced a slender, mellow, elegantly focused baritone as Zurga, king of the pearl fishers. Alone among his colleagues on this occasion, he seemed willing, even eager, to take his character seriously, against all narrative odds. One hopes he doesn’t succumb to the obvious temptation to strain his promising middleweight resources with dangerous heavyweight challenges.

Jan Grissom as Leila, the mysterious object of both tenoral and baritonal affections, looked fetching behind her sacred veil and negotiated her ascending phrases with purity, sweetness and pathos, not to mention agility as needed. Her tone betrayed a hint of edginess under pressure; luckily, there wasn’t much need for pressure.

Mark S. Doss stood around awkwardly as the high priest with the low voice, uttering and muttering his way through the evening with proper basso gusto. Like nearly everyone on the stage, he did some strange things to the French text. Some day, perhaps, authentic diction will become a higher priority at the San Diego Opera.

The modest chorus sang with bravado, arranged itself in dutiful poses and tried valiantly, if not successfully, not to look bored. The motley dancers--bare-chested mock-warriors and pretty-pretty, prim priestesses--tried valiantly, if not successfully, not to look embarrassed.

Keltner sustained remarkable cohesion and breadth in the pit, luxuriating in the sensual harmonies and ennobling the sentiment with dynamic restraint. In the last act, she restored “O lumiere sainte,” a popular passage added to the anticlimactic ending by Benjamin Godard. No one, other than Bizet, could have minded.