Opera Review : Rossini With Sight Gags Staged at Music Center

“L’Italiana in Algeri” is--or at least can be--a deliciously comic bel-canto adventure about the amorous intrigues of a sophisticated Italian girl shipwrecked in stuffy storybook Algiers. It is worth noting, no doubt, that Rossini called his fantasy a dramma giocoso, the same half-playful label Mozart used for “Don Giovanni.”

When Los Angeles last saw the piece, 30 years ago, it served as a super-showy vehicle for a somewhat vulgar, superbly self-indulgent Marilyn Horne in a tacky little production at the new Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Wednesday night “L’Italiana” was back at the Music Center, presented by our current opera company as a lavish introductory vehicle for the much-ballyhooed Jennifer Larmore.

Liked her. Didn’t much like it.

It, in this case, refers primarily to the staging scheme devised by Alain Marcel for the Geneva Opera, our latest partner in lyric crime. Marcel would seem to be one of those busy-busy modernists who cannot leave the libretto alone. Instead of trying to flesh out the characters and define their expressive motivations, he works very hard to invent sight gags that have nothing to do with the business at hand.

Marcel’s “Italiana” really isn’t about thwarted romance in an exotic clime. It’s about decorative gimmickry.

It’s about mugging. It’s about mock-naked caricature eunuchs massaging harem beauties in a Turkish bath. It’s about let’s-pretend stripteases, castration jokes, pokes in the butt and similarly misplaced medical syringes. It’s about pasta orgies--the Italian element, get it?--with protagonists clutching huge ravioli props, semi-clad showgirls rising from gigantic pots of fettuccine and Mustafa, the Bey of Algiers, modeling a Louis XIV suit made of spaghetti.

Less irksome is Marcel’s decision to play loose with details of time and period. He allows his costume designer, David Belugou, to dress the alienated heroine in contemporary prima-donna gowns, and he encourages his set designer, Dominique Pichou, to dress the sparse stage in cartoon props and symbols. This “Italiana” has a wry, airy and contrary look. Too bad the look doesn’t invariably reflect and support Rossini’s sound.

Essentially, the Music Center has imported a trendy concept that cheapens and coarsens both opera buffa and commedia dell’arte. That isn’t easy. Still, much could be forgiven if the theatrics managed to create a genuine old-fashioned laff riot. No such luck. Like Dame Edith’s Daisy and Lilly, this dull “Italiana” is merely lazy and silly.

Under the circumstances, one is often tempted to close one’s eyes and concentrate on the dazzling music-making. But what dazzling music-making? Apart from Larmore, there isn’t much to celebrate here.

The rising mezzo-soprano diva knows how to flash a wicked smile, vocally as well as facially. The daunting florid flights faze her not at all, and she can negotiate the unreasonable range extremes without growling at the bottom or squeaking at the top. She knows how to float the exquisite legato line of “Per lui che adoro.” She always points the text deftly, and executes Marcel’s fatuous charades with apparent good humor. Her tone may not be quite as large or as sparkly as recordings suggest, but her authority, her style and technique seem formidable even under dubious circumstances.

Perhaps next time. . . .

Richard Bonynge provided discreet, tasteful accompaniment in the pit, keeping the patter prim, the balances neat and the cantilena graceful. One appreciated his occasional interpolation of in-jokes--a quotation from “Il Barbiere di Siviglia,” for instance, on Taddeo’s little lute--and one admired his abiding calm. Nevertheless, one longed in vain for a bit more flexibility and a bit more fire. One also longed for a bit more propulsion, a quality that should not be confused with speed.

The supporting cast collected by Peter Hemmings on this occasion isn’t exactly an ensemble of virtuoso specialists. Helmut Berger-Tuna of Stuttgart is fondly remembered as a tough and charming Baron Ochs in “Rosenkavalier,” but his Teutonic basso really cannot cope with Mustafa’s fioriture and he seems out of his histrionic element here. Kurt Streit’s modest tenorino bianco is strained in the heroic ascents required of Lindoro, and some of the problems are solved in terms of omission rather than emission.

Michael Gallup does his incisive best to validate the not-so-humorous platitudes imposed on Taddeo. Constance Hauman, who was the stratospheric soubrette in “Candide” across the plaza, seems oddly subdued as Elvira, Mustafa’s unwanted mini-bride. Tihana Herceg seconds her reticently as the all-purpose confidante, Zulma. Richard Bernstein booms imposingly, when needed, as the resident factotum.

As the final cadence finally beckons, each of the principals pedals privately toward the footlights--and presumably toward la bella Italia--in a tiny white paddle boat. It doesn’t make sense, but the image is cute, cute, cute.

A good time was had by some.

* “L’Italiana in Algeri” presented by the Los Angeles Music Center Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. Remaining performances Sat. at 1 p.m., Jan. 24, 27, 31 and Feb. 3 at 7:30 p.m. Theodora Hanslowe replaces Larmore at the two final performances. $22-$120 (student and senior rush tickets $15, one hour before curtain if available). (213) 972-8001.