Opera Review : A Tawdry, Troubled ‘Trovatore’ in San Francisco

Where, oh where, are those Marx Brothers when we need them?

Verdi’s “Il Trovatore,” which received a sort-of new production at the budget-conscious San Francisco Opera this season, is funny enough without the help of Harpo, Groucho, Chico and the other Nibelungen. But there is a big difference between helpless comedy and inspired foolishness.

The foolishness at the War Memorial Opera House on Thursday was anything but inspired. It was clumsy and tacky--just the sort of thing that confirms every opera-hater’s worst prejudices.

The stage was decorated, once more, by Gerard Howland, San Francisco’s new all-purpose el-cheapo designer. For this dark, bloody, tempestuous tale of love, passion, betrayal, intrigue, revenge and mistaken identity in 15th-Century Spain, he came up with a jumble of styles amid kitsch-postcard aesthetics: cloud-cutouts to frame the proscenium, irrelevant religious images painted in cardboard-Baroque splendor, and clunky quasi-modernist props to differentiate primitive locales. The flimsy, arbitrary window-dressing actually made one long for the bad old days of wrinkled canvas.

The costumes, attributed to no one, suggested a desperate though undeniably resourceful raid on the local warehouse.

The staging scheme, such as it is, was created by John Copley for a different cast last September. The current principals, who do not happen to be thespian giants, have been told by Paula Williams where to enter, where to stand, when to clutch heart or throat and where to collapse or exit.

This was opera by the numbers. Dull numbers.

The tawdry and pretentious charade (top ticket: $120) still might have been salvaged, to a degree at least, by great music-making. Or, perhaps, by Divine Intervention. No such luck.

Ian Robertson, who normally functions as company chorus-master, took over the baton from Daniel Oren. He wielded it briskly and lightly, in an ever-efficient manner that might befit Donizetti better than Verdi. He didn’t do much, however, to sustain dramatic vitality or to propel rhythmic urgency. If his primary goal was to get home as early as possible, one couldn’t blame him.

The production has been plagued by crucial cast changes from the start. The first set of performances found both romantic principals--Aprile Millo and Michael Sylvester--on the sick list. The chief attraction at the December revival was supposed to have been the fascinating Hungaro-German soprano Julia Varady (who happens to be the wife of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau), but, true to her habit, she found herself available only for a limited number of cancellations.

To replace her, San Francisco’s adventurous impresarios turned to one Zvetelina Vassileva, a possibly terrified neophyte from Sofia, Bulgaria.

She is very pretty, and she struck fetching poses on Thursday. She earned points for restoring “Tu vedrai che amore in terra,” a cabaletta most prima donnas prefer to omit. Vocally, alas, she teetered on the brink of disaster.

Her small and thin soprano turned shrill at the top and all but evaporated at the bottom. The arching cantilena defeated her breath supply, and proper pitch was a sometime thing in ascending lines. Leonora’s lines ascend a lot.

*

In a flight of creative economics, San Francisco had upped the box-office ante by $10 per ticket whenever Placido Domingo appeared this season. By consistent rights, the management should have offered refunds--say $7.50 per customer--to acknowledge the value of the latest Slavic import.

The rest of the cast was at least competent. With more incisive dramatic and musical leadership, the abiding dullness factor might have been diminished.

Dennis O’Neill, the stodgy-portly Manrico on duty, looked and acted pretty much like a standard cartoon tenor. Luckily, much of his singing allowed sound to overpower sight. He floated ravishing mezza-voce tones when Verdi asked for them, and, even without the prescribed trills, was able to make “Ah si, ben mio, coll’essere” a poignant reverie. He also mustered a reasonable facsimile of climactic power for “Di quella pira”--both verses for a change--and capped the stretta with a plangent top C (a pitch the glamorous tenorissimi avoid via transposition).

Vladimir Chernov, James Levine’s anointed Verdi-baritone at the Met, turned the mellifluously evil Count into a pleasant singing-statue. He produced plenty of solid, even, burnished tone, but little dynamic variety and less emotional tension. Although “Il balen” emerged as a good demonstration of the art of legato phrasing, the aria told us little about Luna’s tormented character.

Stefania Toczyska sang the affecting plaints of Azucena with more force than her previous efforts in this repertory had led one to expect. She could hardly eradicate memories of her great, fiery, gutsy predecessors in the role--from Stignani to Castagna, Elmo to Barbieri, Simionato to, yes, Zajick. But she did perform with informed style, admirable security and reasonable thrust. Under the circumstances, one had to be grateful.

Philip Skinner brought ample basso-competence to the narrative platitudes of Ferrando. The resident comprimarios were OK.

Robertson’s charges sang the music of the masses lustily for their boss. It it would require a higher power, however, to make anyone take that infernal Anvil Chorus seriously these days, on either side of the proscenium. On Thursday, the quaint crashing and clunking served just one useful purpose: It kept an understandably somnolent audience awake, at least for a little while.

* “Il Trovatore,” presented by the San Francisco Opera at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. Remaining performances Sunday at 1 p.m., Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., next Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets $10 (standing room) to $120. (415) 864-3330.