‘Deceit’ triumphs, and what a pleasure that is

PART mad Stravinsky, part mad Purcell, part mad Handel, Gerald Barry’s “The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit” is a zany, outlandish and, of course, thoroughly batty 55-minute Irish opera. It also was a triumph of Pleasure, Truth and Time (its other three characters) in its American premiere Tuesday night at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

“Beauty and Deceit” was presented in concert form by the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group in its Green Umbrella series. Pleasure won out because the opera offers delirious, lascivious, hilarious bouts of it, and because the performance, featuring five terrific male singers and 15 Philharmonic players conducted by Thomas Ades, was so good.

But Time and Truth’s triumphs were maybe the most remarkable of all. In the opera, Deceit defeats Truth and Time. Beauty, unwilling to accept his transience, must have Pleasure at all costs. Audiences want the same, and conventional thinking suggests that that means they want what they know.

Tuesday, a large crowd assembled at the Disney Hall to hear an opera by a composer most probably didn’t know. Over time the Philharmonic has built trust. Deceit won’t draw listeners for long. Truth, Green Umbrella impressively demonstrates, will.

Though barely known in America (where new opera is rarely imported), Barry happens to be one of Ireland’s most important composers. His latest opera, which premiered at English National Opera last year, was “The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant,” based upon the Rainer Werner Fassbinder film. “Beauty and Deceit” was a commission for television (British television, it goes almost without saying). It turns Handel’s oratorio “The Triumph and Truth” on its head.

Aging, and our avid war with it, is the subject. Meredith Oakes’ verse libretto is a luscious, naughty parody of 18th century parable. Barry’s relentlessly upbeat score is then a subversion of her verse. He flaunts text, constantly thwarting accents. The musical materials are often simple. Chirpy Neoclassical Stravinskyan rhythms prevail. But the rate of change is radically accelerated. The text is treated like a yo-yo, words constantly flung out and back, sometimes so fast and reckless they hit you in the face.

The result is maddening but highly amusing complexity. The mind works fast to catch words, to follow arguments. Everything is too fast, too jumbled. But the mind is a funny thing. It adapts to nuttiness surprisingly quickly. There is no way you can get it all the first, second or third time. But somehow it all makes sense. The singers leap crazily, but the most lascivious words stick. Pleasure plays on the ear almost obscenely.

All the while, the instruments, in constant rhythmic motion, dance chaotic bits of waltz, jig or hornpipe, their jagged, angular lines ever colliding.

Pleasure (Andrew Watts) and Truth (Stephen Wallace) are countertenors. Beauty (Christopher Lemmings) is a tenor, Deceit (Keith Phares) a baritone, Time (Kevin Burdette) a booming bass. All dazzled.

Ades -- whose outlandish, obscene first opera, “Powder Her Face,” was clearly influenced by “Beauty and Deceit,” and who used Oakes for his second opera, “The Tempest” -- conducted with extraordinary precision and appealing flair, and seemed to have an alarmingly good time doing the nearly impossible.

That this was also extremely hard work was only evident from the fact that his black shirt was sopping wet at the end. But it was, in fact, incredibly hard work to pull this opera off.

It should be done again. Next, “Petra von Kant” needs to be seen in this town obsessed with mingling opera with film.

With this “Triumph,” Green Umbrella has demonstrated something that provincial American opera companies refuse to acknowledge: Audiences want, can handle and need to know about new opera from elsewhere and everywhere. And Ireland isn’t really all that foreign, anyway.

mark.swed@latimes.com