OPERA REVIEW : Met ‘Ghosts’: A Triumph of Clever Contrivance

“The Ghosts of Versailles”--score by John Corigliano, text by William M. Hoffman--turned out to be a surprise hit at the Metropolitan Opera in 1992.

The opera was chic, clever and showy, all at the same delirious time. It managed to keep its modernism within safe, accessible bounds. It became the talk of a notoriously conservative town.

Venturing its first premiere in 25 years, the mighty Met left no musical or theatrical turn unstoned. The company reportedly paid the authors a mere $50,000, then went on to lavish more than $2 million on the production.

It enlisted a cast of thousands--well, 42 plus chorus and two orchestras. The stage was brilliantly adorned by John Conklin with an array of surrealistic images and props--some floating, some earthbound, all poetic.

Colin Graham concocted an elaborate scheme of action that, according to program-note promises, presented “a world beyond time inhabited by members of the French aristocracy who have been executed during the French Revolution.” That description omits the involvement of numerous Mozartean characters who weave in and out of the drama to create an amusing opera within the not-so-amusing opera.

Corigliano’s multileveled seance lasted 3 1/2 hours, and in the process gave some critical eyes and ears too much of a mediocre thing. It seemed artfully contrived, terribly convoluted, painfully padded.

It also proved amazingly popular with the public. Never underestimate the appeal of an easy tune and trendy adventure.

Monday night, “The Ghosts of Versailles” returned to Lincoln Center. What a difference three years can make.

The house wasn’t exactly full at the outset, and the audience shrank considerably during intermission. The production looked as wondrous as ever, and--with James Levine in the pit and an enlightened cast (partly new) on the stage--the musical values were splendid. But, if familiarity with the work didn’t exactly breed contempt, its absence hadn’t exactly made hearts grow fonder.

Corigliano has dressed up Hoffman’s fancy, fanciful libretto with three kinds of music. There is formula dissonance to signal contemporary chaos. There is static kitsch-lyricism for sentimental indulgence. There is smart-alecky quotation to reinforce old operatic associations.

The active hero of the piece is Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, author of revolutionary plays that inspired Mozart, Rossini, Paisiello and, closer to home, Milhaud. The casting device permits Corigliano to bring back characters from “Le Nozze di Figaro,” “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” and, most crucially, “La Mere Coupable”--the ironic sequel that finds Countess Almaviva the mother of little Cherubino’s child.

Corigliano does a lot of recomposing and decomposing of familiar phrases for the in crowd. He filters the patter of “Largo al factotum” through his own analytical sensibilities, toys sweetly with permutations and combinations of stock-Mozart themes, even throws in passing references to the Richards Strauss and Wagner.

One applauds his versatility, his wit and craft. One especially admires the neatness of his set pieces and the transparency of his orchestrations. One is amazed at his facility in adopting and adapting the styles of his predecessors. If nothing else, he is a master technician.

After a while, unfortunately, one begins to wonder which, if any, of the voices heard here really belongs to Corigliano. We find as many ghosts in the pit as on the stage.

The stage is dominated by Teresa Stratas as Marie Antoinette, a.k.a. Antonia, a fragile creature who wants to re-examine her tragic destiny. Although reportedly suffering from bronchitis, Stratas sang with luminous tone and enacted the queen’s gentle agonies with exquisitely muted pathos.

Making his debut as Beaumarchais--now Marie Antoinette’s idealistic, would-be lover--Hector Vasquez projected ardor, dignity and frustration with a pliant baritone and theatrical savoir-faire.

Leading the nostalgia contingent, Gino Quilico blustered amiably as an aging Figaro, nicely seconded by Judith Christin’s matronly Susanna. Hei-Kyung Hong suffered beautifully as the Countess Almaviva. Kurt Streit sputtered nobly as her wandering Count, and Tracy Dahl explored the soprano stratosphere nimbly as his illegitimate daughter. Wendy White’s mellifluous Cherubino suggested, properly, that the irresistible page boy didn’t age all that gracefully.

Allan Glassman was imposingly creepy, staunchly stentorian as Begearss, the sadistic arch-villain. Marilyn Horne reduced the superfluous cameo of Samira, an Egyptian-Turkish-Arabian comic-vamp, to shameless camp. (During curtain calls, she was feted for 25 years of service in the house.)

The future of “The Ghosts of Versailles” at the Met is uncertain. By returning for a second season, however, the “grand opera buffa” has already outplayed Marvin David Levy’s “Mourning Becomes Electra,” first and last performed here in 1967. Corigliano’s pretty specters are scheduled to move on to Chicago for another haunting this fall.