Opera Pacific Finally Tackles Strauss

“Der Rosenkavalier” was the first great opera that was not about history but the idea of history. Rather than recapture Vienna’s past, Richard Strauss turned the modern Vienna of 1911 on its head. For him and his librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal, passing time is understood not through the relativity of the new physics or the wrinkle of a gravity wave, but through the Marschallin’s perception of a facial wrinkle or the harsh accents of an improperly coiffed wave.

The Marschallin, the wife of a powerful Field Marshal, is one of the most beloved characters in opera. An older woman initiating a young cousin into the domain of love, she hangs on to the last shreds of youth. “Rosenkavalier” begins with her in bed with Octavian, and it ends with her handing the boy over to Sophie, a young version of the Marschallin whom he will marry. Man or woman, young or old, we all know, or think we know, exactly how the Marschallin feels.

Helen Donath presented a dignified and unusually unsentimental view of the Marschallin on Tuesday night, when Opera Pacific staged a new production of “Der Rosenkavalier” at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. She was one of the few seasoned, mature singers in an otherwise young cast. At times she was maybe just a bit too seasoned, and the others not quite there yet. But the staging was the company’s first attempt at Strauss, correcting a 15-year neglect.

The opera does not tell a touching story simply. “Rosenkavalier” is a lavish work, and performed complete, as it was Tuesday, it is a four-hour commitment for the audience. Lavish sets would have helped make us comfortable, but they probably would have broken the budget. Sketchy, conventional ones by Bruno Schwengl (who also designed the unimaginative period costumes) were borrowed from Seattle Opera. One nice touch, however, turned the third-act tavern into a garden, which allowed for a romantic starry sky at evening’s end.

“Rosenkavalier” plays out as a farce, and it can get wild on the stage. Jay Lesenger, the director, took the attitude of not interfering with music or adding anything new. It may have been his only option, given that Opera Pacific double-casts in order to fit as many performances as possible into a single week. John DeMain conducted without nonsense, another practical solution. If it meant little lingering over moments of magical Straussian nostalgia, it also meant that the opera held together and moved along. But a large, loud, pressed orchestra was hard on young voices.

Octavian, the boy coping with early stirrings of manhood, in a bit of buoyant Viennese gender confusion, is a mezzo-soprano role. Patricia Risley was persuasively masculine, her voice sure and hard. Nancy Allen Lundy also convinced as the naive Sophie, her small soprano growing in confidence throughout the evening. The famous trio for the women at the end had traces of silver.

Markus Hollop (Baron Ochs) and James Maddelena (Faninal) were responsible for much of the humor, and they accomplished that in opposite ways. Hollop--younger, taller, slimmer than the traditional overstuffed lecherous baron--discarded all dignity; gross if funny, a sloppy character was revealed through sloppy singing. Maddelena’s baritone is no longer always reliable, but his stage presence is. His small, but telling, portrait of Sophie’s social climbing father was one of hilarious nuance. Most notable among the many others this opera employs were Jane Shaulis (Annina), Dennis Petersen (Valzacchi) and Robert Breault (an Italian tenor).

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* “Der Rosenkavalier” repeats with the first cast tonight and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and with the second cast (Deanne Meek as Octavian and Elizabeth Holleque as the Marschallin) Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., $29-$107, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, (800) 346-7372.