Less View, Just as Much Vision

To begin his exceedingly strange, presciently surrealist 1901 drama, “A Dream Play,” Strindberg asked for a backdrop of clouds that resemble crumbling slate mountains with ruins of castles and fortresses. He also wanted the constellations of Leo, Virgo and Libra to be visible.

But that could mean essentially no work for set designers at the Santa Fe Opera, which currently is presenting a recent opera by the Swedish composer Ingvar Lidholm based closely on the Strindberg play. Or at least it could have, before this summer. The company, legendary for having an opera house with an eccentric partial roof that left some central seats exposed to the alluring New Mexico sky, has closed the hole.

Now Santa Fe has a mostly new opera house, built on the site of the old. The original stage, which is backless and affords a spectacular view of distant mountains, was retained, but the rest of the old theater was razed.

Still, the new structure, though with full roof, closely resembles the old. The theater retains the same shape and the sides remain open to the desert, its vistas and cold drafts of night air. But the feeling now is more like being in a tent, a sensation visually enhanced by the way the architects, Polshek and Partners, have suspended the undulating roof from above by rods attached to a central mast.

The new house, with 2,126 seats, is slightly larger. It is also a bit more civilized, having better access for the disabled, additional restrooms, modernized lighting and, of course, protection for all from sudden downpours.

The new roof is better for opera, certainly. It has been designed acoustically and does a good job of focusing a dry but accurate sound. I didn’t get to experience it in a thunderstorm but reports that it minimizes the noise of a downpour are believable. Previously, the sound of falling rain within the theater resembled the scratchy surface noise of an old 78-rpm recording. The musicians too are better protected. In the past, a really bad storm could halt the performance.

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Still, there is always a price for civilization, and Santa Fe Opera has sacrificed the priceless magic of the desert sky and a little adventure for the sake of art and creature comforts. A good trade-off for most. But I am not alone in missing the stars above.

Nevertheless, the house works; it was built for a reasonable $18.8 million, and it stands as a monument to the company’s founder, John Crosby. Crosby, who recently turned 72, has announced his retirement after the 2000 season, and I hope the first thing his successor, Richard Gaddes, does when he takes over is to name the new theater after him. Not only did Crosby firmly establish opera 41 years ago in a place where it seemed impossible that it could ever take root, but he has run the company with a vision ever since.

Part of that vision has been the support of new, recent or obscure work other American companies wouldn’t go near, such as Lidholm’s “A Dream Play,” seen Wednesday night. Though a prominent composer in Sweden, Lidholm, who was born in 1921, is little heard in America. Likewise, we may rarely encounter “A Dream Play,” but it was Strindberg’s favorite among his works and it is revered in Sweden.

Lidholm treats Strindberg with just such reverence. His libretto is less adaptation than condensation of a convoluted, irrational plot. In it, the daughter of a god, Indra, descends from the heavens to get a close look at humanity. What she sees is mostly absurd and unhappy.

But she is radiantly beautiful and gets into the terrestrial swim of things quickly. She loves, suffers and has a small influence on the poor wretches she encounters. But it’s all too much for her in the end, and she retreats skyward, leaving behind not exactly enlightenment but a few clues on how to get there.

Strindberg’s intent in all this is to coax us into better appreciating reality--it may be bad, but dreams are worse. Lidholm, whose music is polished and tonal, sincerely underscores the action and efficiently moves the text along with his smooth vocal writing, which functions as heightened speech. But he stops short of capturing the otherworldly, dreamlike quality of it all.

Colin Graham’s production, given in an English translation by the director, proved just as adept as the composer at making sense of a difficult play. The stage was closed off with backdrops of painted clouds (a cross between Magritte and Windows 98), which effectively emphasized the artificiality of the dream world by blocking out the real thing. The large cast was fine, especially Sylvia McNair, whom it was nice to see in a modern opera. Hal France conducted with care.

A model Lidholm might have turned to for imaginative adaptation of classic drama is Berlioz’s “Beatrice and Benedict,” which the company performed in a new production seen Thursday night. The composer’s last opera, taken from Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” is a wonderful caprice on human nature.

Following the French opera comique tradition, which combines spoken drama and song, Berlioz uses music less for storytelling than for setting of mood and revealing of inner feelings. The dialogue, in Graham’s English version, is mainly Shakespeare. The music, sung in Geoffrey Dunn’s translation from the French, is, however, very much its own world, and in this case is Berlioz at his most ephemeral and seductive.

The production by Tim Albery was over the top, what with its hospital beds, wounded soldiers and Florence Nightingale (don’t ask!), but it did have amusing moments. Don’t ask, either, about Antony McDonald’s treacherous set, its wavy floor like a sheet of warped paper punctured by a row of quill pens. But the stage remained open, and Jennifer Tipton’s lighting colored the desert night with exceptional clarity and beauty.

The music too glowed in a handsome performance. The opera could almost be titled “Beatrice,” Berlioz so centered it on the breaking down of her defenses, and Susan Graham’s Beatrice--funny, touching and finely sung--enchanted.

But then all the cast--and especially Gordon Gietz (Benedict) and Elizabeth Futral (a most attractive Hero)--was well-suited to Shakespeare and to Berlioz. What a pleasure to encounter singers who can also act Shakespeare (and without amplification). What an additional pleasure to hear Berlioz’s subtle score conducted with warmth, verve and wisdom by Edo de Waart. “Beatrice and Benedict” is an inexplicably neglected work, and once more Santa Fe jumped in exactly where needed.

* Santa Fe Opera’s season of five operas runs through Aug. 29. It also includes a new production of “The Magic Flute” and reprises its productions of “Salome” and “Madama Butterfly.” Information: (800) 280-4654 or https://www.santafeopera.org.