Students wear Rota’s ‘Hat’ well

Many a composer has written film scores and opera as well -- nothing strange about that. The Oscar winners in this bunch alone include Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Bernard Herrmann, Aaron Copland, Malcolm Arnold, John Corigliano, Tan Dun and Elliot Goldenthal. Philip Glass and Michael Nyman are, today, equally active on the lyric stage and the Hollywood soundstage.

We thus hardly need raise an eyebrow at Nino Rota, whose “The Italian Straw Hat” received its West Coast premiere over the weekend by the Music Academy of the West at the Lobero Theatre here. The opera beguiles, and the performance, by students of exceptional caliber, proved an unqualified delight. Yet eyebrows arched high.

Rota -- Fellini’s regular composer, who also scored much of the “Godfather” films and who died in 1979 at age 77 -- produced reams of simple-sounding, direct music. “The Italian Straw Hat,” composed in 1945 but not orchestrated or produced until 10 years later, is a farce in the style of Rossini with a dash of Puccini thrown in. It is so stylistically retrograde that, not knowing its date, you might wonder what century it comes from.

But the opera, along with the best of Rota’s film and concert music, can be confusing. The harmonies of “Straw Hat” might have been recognizable to Rossini, yet he would have never thought of them himself. No one half a century or even a quarter of a century earlier would have paced an opera the way Rota did “Straw Hat.”

Rota was, in fact, a master of deconstruction. The genius of the theme to “8 1/2 “ is that it becomes more heartbreaking the faster it gets. Rota slowed manic music for a chase scene in an obscure ‘50s Italian film into the “Godfather” theme (the motion picture academy withdrew his nomination for original score when it learned that, but later awarded him an Oscar for “Godfather II”). Things aren’t always what they seem in Rota.

That is certainly true of the sparkling “Straw Hat.” The opera is sheer slapstick, with barely a serious moment or character. Set in Paris in 1850, it follows the adventures of Fadinard, who, on his wedding day, happens upon an adulterous couple in the woods. His horse eats the woman’s straw hat, and if she returns home without it her jealous husband will be suspicious. What follows is a convoluted chase in which Fadinard races through the streets of Paris -- to a milliner, to the homes of a preposterous baroness and the woman’s husband. All the while, Fadinard’s wedding party is a step behind, wreaking havoc upon havoc.

The characters are all stock. Fadinard’s father-in-law, Nonancourt, is a country-bumpkin nincompoop in too-tight shoes. Elena, the bride, is a sweet nothing who breaks into meaningless coloratura at every opportunity. There is a deaf uncle, drunken police guards, the grouchy deceived husband.

Rota -- who based the opera on a French play and wrote the libretto with his mother, Ernesta -- gave it a tempo that is breakneck from start to finish. The music can make you a little crazy. It often sounds familiar, and Rota does pick up bits of 19th century Italian opera. He also picks up bits of his own film scores. But everything, just like the “Godfather” theme, is turned on its head. And nothing lasts very long -- the music constantly, slyly, effortlessly slipping out of this and into that.

But it is the timing that confounds the most. Rota’s clock came from the 20th century. He knew the language and the rhythm of the cinema. Rossini didn’t do jump shots; Puccini didn’t pan; Rota does. As filmgoers, we slip comfortably into this kind of timing, and suddenly old music doesn’t sound old anymore.

The cast of young singers at the Music Academy of the West surely needed no lectures on how this all works. A video generation has film editing in its blood. But Frank Corsaro’s production, which he originally conceived for the Juilliard School in 1998, is a dazzling thing anyway. He updates the libretto to the flapper ‘20s, with bits of both Paris and Italy. Franco Colavecchia’s clever set is Deco. Melissa Bruning’s amusing costumes are flamboyantly white.

The Fadinard in Santa Barbara was Leonardo Capalbo, a 25-year-old tenor from New Jersey, and he gave a star performance. A smooth charmer with a cocky half-smile, a flair for athletic comedy and an elegant, secure voice, he seems destined for just about anything. The show was his for the taking, and he took it. But he never could have succeeded if all the pieces of this intricate ensemble work weren’t also precisely in place.

The production introduced one winning, if hammy, performer after another. Elaine Alvarez, Joni Henson, Anna Uzzell, Timothy Fallon, Dimitrie Lazich and the other twentysomethings in the cast forecast a promising future for opera. They responded to Corsaro in even the smallest ways, down to the roll of the eyes of a chorus member.

Randall Behr conducted with grace and gumption, and the orchestra was on the level of the singers.