Just a Beginning

There is no more curious or more obscure opera likely to be found anywhere this season than Tigran Chukhadjian’s “Arshak II,” which was given its world premiere by the San Francisco Opera at the War Memorial Opera house Saturday night.

Written in 1868, it was the first Armenian opera, but, for both political and economic reasons, only concert excerpts were performed during the composer’s lifetime. The score was presumed lost after his death in 1898, but the manuscript was discovered three decades later in Paris, among the effects of Chukhadjian’s widow, who died there. A Soviet-approved version of the opera--with the music rewritten to an entirely new libretto--was given its premiere in the Armenian capital Yerevan in 1945 to celebrate the end of World War II, and it is in that form that the opera continues to be mounted in Armenia.

The inspiration for the “Arshak II” premiere, the first professional production of an Armenian opera in this country, was that of a violinist in the San Francisco Opera, Gerard Svazlian, who had once been a member of the Armenian National Opera in Yerevan. When he approached then-San Francisco Opera general director Lotfi Mansouri (who retired at the end of last season) with his dream to mount an Armenian opera, Mansouri agreed to produce “Arshak II,” provided that the violinist could produce $1 million. With contributions large and small (mostly small) from the extensive California Armenian community, Svazlian raised the money.

And so a proud community and the opera came together Saturday night for a gala premiere, with the proceeds to be donated to the reconstruction of the Vanatsor Armenian Music School destroyed by Armenia’s 1988 earthquake. It was a noble night all around, except for one major flaw. “Arshak II” represents the birth of a national opera, not its pinnacle; it is not even a representative of its potential. Despite its subject matter and the fact that it was performed in Armenian, there is next to nothing Armenian in the art of “Arshak II.”

Shortly before writing his first opera, Chukhadjian studied for three years at the Milan Conservatory and came to be known as the Armenian Verdi (when he wasn’t called the Armenian Offenbach). He wrote “Arshak II” in Italian as “Arsace” (it was specially translated into Armenian for the San Francisco performance, while still retaining the characters’ Italianized names). It was later that Chukhadjian blended Armenian folk music into his Westernized operatic molds. “Arshak II” mimics only early and middle-period Verdi, um-pah-pahs and all. At best, there is an extra grace note here and there to add a touch of “exoticism.”

The libretto by Tovmas Tersian follows the Italian practice of the day, turning historical characters into melodramatic monsters. In it, Arsace (based on the 4th century Armenian king), lusting after his sister-in-law, the beautiful Paransema, imprisons his own wife Olimpia; kills his brother, Knel; and forces Paransema to marry him. Along the way, Arsace also murders his father, the old king Diran. Paransema turns nasty in her own right and slays the son of Arsace and Olimpia. Angered that Arsace has rekindled his love for the gentle Olimpia, the new queen then poisons the imprisoned one, but the plot goes and awry and both queens drink the doctored wine. The horrified Armenian people finally execute Arsace.

In an attempt to extract exciting theater out of this, San Francisco Opera hired a noted director, Francesca Zambello, who seems to have simply thrown up her hands (as she also has many in the cast do). Perhaps she realized that with John Coyne’s clunky Babylonian set and Anita Yavich’s folksy costumes, there was little hope. But Zambello did produce one touching moment, lowering Olimpia down in her cage. The most beautiful music in the opera is also Olimpia’s; her lament to her slaughtered son demonstrates the budding original talent in the young composer. That moment, however, had to compete with the likes of a tepid graveyard scene in which Arsace and Paransema are confronted by the ghosts of their victims and a kitschy ballet in the last act.

Olimpia was entrusted to the most accomplished singer in the cast, Armenian soprano Hasmik Papian, who has the steely gleam and rapt lyricism of a true Verdian. The French mezzo-soprano Nora Gubisch was always loud, and occasionally exciting, as a tigerish Paransema. The bass Tigran Martirossian was the booming Catholic priest, Nerses (the real historical troublemaker but, in the opera, a mildly persuasive figure). Baritone Christopher Robertson looked more imposing than he sounded as Arsace; tenor Philip Webb was a stalwart Knel. Loris Tjeknavorian conducted the undemanding score with more purpose than nuance. The chorus has a large part and sang with spirit.

In the end, the evening proved more a triumph of musicological enterprise than opera. A community had been prodded into paying for this historical resurrection in the name of national pride. Maybe it is an exaggeration to say that “Arshak II” is to Armenian opera what James Hewitt’s 1794 “Tammary, or The Indian Chief” (the first American opera composed for the American stage) is to American opera.

But “Arshak II” is hardly an example of the heights to which a great culture can rise. As for Mansouri, he left the whole mess of selling the stage to special interest groups in the hands of its his successor, Pamela Rosenberg, who must cool her heels for a season before she can begin providing this company with the substance it has sorely lacked in recent years.

*

“Arshak II” continues (with some cast changes) through Sept. 30, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco, (415) 861-4008 or https://www.sfopera.org .