Opera Review : Janacek’s ‘Case’ at the Met Misfires

It is impossible to see the new production of Janacek’s “Makropulos Case” at the Metropolitan Opera without remembering Richard Versalle.

On Jan. 5, at what should have been the premiere of the Met’s first encounter with this thriller about the quest for immortality, Versalle, 63, fell some 20 feet to his death during the opening scene. A former heroic tenor--celebrated as Tannhauser in Bayreuth--and now a specialist in character parts, he portrayed the law clerk Vitek. Elijah Moshinsky, the director, had him climbing up and down a towering ladder in Anthony Ward’s semi-surrealist set, clutching papers in one hand. After declaiming the horribly prophetic line, “You can only live so long,” Versalle suffered a heart attack.

The premiere was, of course, canceled. As the fates would have it, the next scheduled performance, three days later, fell victim to the Great Blizzard of ’96. When the premiere finally took place, on Jan. 11, the opening scene had been restaged. Vitek, played by Versalle’s able understudy, Ronald Naldi, sat at a desk. An anonymous flunky handed him papers. No one touched the ominous ladder.

Nothing went wrong at the last performance of the season Thursday night. Still, one could sense a certain unease on both sides of the proscenium. The opera had taken on an aura of eeriness that far exceeded the science-fiction convolutions of Karel Capek’s plot.

It would be gratifying to report that the quality of the performance somehow muted the painful ironies that surrounded it. Unfortunately, “Vec Makropulos”--a.k.a. “The Makropulos Case,” a.k.a. “The Makropulos Secret,” a.k.a. “The Makropulos Affair” and best translated as “The Makropulos Thing”--did not represent the mighty Met at its exalted best.

The staging made better pictures than sense. The casting ranged from competent to perverse.

*

It took America’s leading opera company a long time to catch up with this elusive masterpiece, first performed in Brno in 1926. San Francisco hosted the U.S. premiere in 1966. Four years later, the New York City Opera produced a famous multimedia production that soon traveled to Los Angeles. The Music Center offered its own problematic version in 1992. For many stubbornly traditional and intrinsically conservative New Yorkers, however, operatic validation comes only with recognition at the Met.

In this instance, the validation is as dubious as it is late. “Vec Makropulos” is a far better opera than the current evidence would suggest.

The Met decided, quite sensibly, to utilize an English translation, even though Janacek’s conversational lines are predicated on the specific inflections and rhythms of Czech speech. Most of the singers articulated the English text, however, as if it were so much Silly Putty, forcing the audience to concentrate on translations of the translation flashed via “Met Titles” on panels attached to every seat back.

Compounding the alienation, Moshinsky refused to tell the story straight. Oddly citing the dark cinematic images of Orson Welles, the director moved the inaction forward to the present, thus mangling the very specific temporal references. He toyed with pretty symbols, at one point lodging his prima donna between the paws of a gigantic Sphinx, and turning the pathetic old Hauk-Sendorf into a Ghost of Christmas Past shrouded in cobwebs. The crucial line that separates the macabre from caricature was often blurred.

Which brings us to the all-important title role. Emilia Marty--the wise and weary diva who at 337 renounces the secret of eternal life, the mysterious and magnetic incarnation of the eternal female--must be a powerful erotic force in this wry tragedy. She also must be bigger than life. In distinctly different ways, Marie Collier, Anja Silja, Elisabeth Soderstrom, Hildegard Behrens and Maralin Niska have triumphed as the all-too-ageless heroine. Jessye Norman, the apparent raison d’etre for this incarnation, carries on an outrageous flirtation with disaster.

She sings the difficult notes well enough, in her usual super-opulent way, especially when the notes don’t lie particularly high. But she bathes every phrase in thick mock-Wagnerian mush. Even more damaging, she strikes outlandish cartoon poses, cuts a generously stately figure in Dona Granata’s Halloween costumes, and, believe it or not, alters the text when the words happen to strike her as vulgar or sacrilegious. Her performance lends a dangerous new nuance to the concept of self-indulgence.

Non-incidental footnote: When the production is revived in two years, it will be sung in the original language, and the title role will be assigned to Catherine Malfitano.

Graham Clark, whose modest stature and whiny tenor make him an ideal Nibelung, is sadly out of his element in the brash, would-be romantic duties of Gregor. At least one can understand him.

Hakan Hagegard is stuffy and soft-edged as the tragically tough Jaroslav Prus. Donald McIntyre projects reasonable urgency as the blustery lawyer Kolenaty, but Anthony Laciura is defeated by his cobwebby straitjacket as old Hauk-Sendorf. Ara Berberian and Stephanie Blythe (who recently replaced Marilyn Horne here in “Falstaff”) make much of passing cameos in the backstage episode. Marie Plette and William Burden fade into the tricky scenery as the young innocents on duty.

David Robertson, a Santa Monican making his house debut, conducts with authority and reasonable bravado. But he fails to focus the climactic, expansive lyricism that should offset the pervasive turbulence. Significantly, perhaps, he receives credit--along with Moshinsky and, yes, Norman--for the mostly unintelligible translation.