WEEKEND REVIEWS : Recovering Mozart’s ‘Zaide’

Even after the overachieving excess of the Mozart bicentennial, that composer’s “Zaide” remains a rarity. It was easy to see why, in the version presented by Euterpe Opera Theatre Saturday at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, while appreciating its very real temptations.

Musically there are treasures here, but it is hard to pretend that the obscurity of the singspiel has been a great loss to the theater. Mozart left it unfinished--by how much is subject to debate--and the spoken dialogue connecting the musical numbers has been lost.

The Euterpean solutions at least had brevity in their favor. Probably nothing could make the whirlwind shifts of emotional allegiance in the first act or the edgeless confrontation of the second dramatically viable, though the magic of Mozart’s music may make us watch sympathetically.

Similar plot and characterizations would be developed later in “The Abduction From the Seraglio.” Here, unhappy Gomatz and Zaide fall in love at first glance and decide to escape from their servitude to the Turkish Sultan Soliman, aided by the guard Allazim.

They are caught and, despite singing at length before the previously enraged Soliman, sentenced to death. Mozart’s work ends at that point, with coincidence and another emotional volte-face enlisted to save the escapees, and Mozart’s concert aria, “Nehmt Meinen Dank,” K. 383, tweaked into service as a finale.

Patricia Prunty sang the adaptation of Nicholas Deutsch’s English translation with point and passion in the title role, with Beau Palmer’s Gomatz her equal in clarity and ardor. Roberto Perlas Gomez gave baritonal dignity to Allazim and anchored the ensembles securely. Perrin Allen’s light tenor broke several times in the attempt to infuse Soliman’s music with fury.

William Mark Adams provided patter-song comic relief as Osmin, and Steven Hoye offered what menace the piece suggests in the non-singing part of Zaram. All moved comfortably in director Kenneth Danziger’s simple staging.

Conductor David Anglin kept a fine little chamber orchestra on a stylish course, though more bite would have been nice at times. Singers and orchestra balanced, no small achievement in an outdoor amphitheater, much beset on this occasion by the roar of the crowd across the freeway at a Hollywood Bowl jazz concert.

Glenn Bradley’s effective costumes suggested a Turkey of ambiguous period, on a spare stage efficiently lit by Eileen Cooley.

Additional performances are scheduled Friday and Saturday.