A rogue night

LONG BEACH OPERA is, these days, often operaless. Frequently, it is Long Beach Song Cycle, if that.

Last month, the company began its current season staging Ricky Ian Gordon’s “Orpheus & Euridice.” A song cycle. On Saturday, the company presented the second of three performances of a double bill: HK Gruber’s “Frankenstein!!” (a song cycle) and Richard Strauss’ “Enoch Arden” (a “melodrama” for speaker and piano).

Next up will be a recital by Frederica von Stade in May. The season ends with Grigori Frid’s “The Diary of Anne Frank,” a monodrama for soprano and chamber orchestra in 21 episodes. A songish cycle.

What this means about the health of a once ambitious and still important company, I’m not sure. Surely, there is cause for concern, especially given that Long Beach, at least aesthetically, remains an increasingly rare bastion of operatic innovation on the West Coast. On Saturday night, the Long Beach Center Theater -- scene of many of the company’s triumphs but one seldom used for opera these days -- was not even vaguely opera-like.

For the first 69 minutes, British actor Michael York relied on his classical stage training to invest a little life into Tennyson’s protracted potboiler of a poem, “Enoch Arden.” Accompanied by piano, he worked, script in hand, on a stage bare save for a stool and a screen on which was projected an occasional illustrative painting.

The second half, also entrusted to York, this time as chansonnier (a fancy name for screwball singer), was a lot livelier. Gruber’s wonderfully anarchic “Frankenstein!!,” which the nose-thumbing Viennese composer calls “a pan-demonium,” was helped along by the anarchic, nose-thumbing (and, at one point, nose-picking) Rogue Artists Ensemble. A Long Beach “hyper-theater” collective, these young multidisciplinary performers fool around with puppetry, masks and goofy projections. Their technology is hand-made. They made a mess on the stage -- and left it garbage-strewed when they were finished. In so doing, they translated Gruber’s insubordinate old-world spirit into their funky new Long Beach version.

A hit when it was premiered in 1978 with the composer as chansonnier by Simon Rattle in Liverpool, “Frankenstein!!” has remained a new-music pleasure since. In fact, the composer, as delightful as ever, has recorded it yet again (on Chandos).

The texts by H.C. Artmann (the late poet differed with the composer about whether to use periods with his initials) are children’s verses for very bad children. Nasty monsters and monsterlets do nasty things. A jaunty John Wayne, Goldfinger, James Bond, Superman, Batman, Robin, Miss Dracula, a werewolf and a particularly mean-spirited rat cavort.

Artmann wrote in a quirky Viennese dialect that translates into English remarkably well. The chansonnier doesn’t sing so much as make nutty noises. The chamber ensemble plays in tune and out, and the players occasionally exchange instruments for toys. Gruber’s melodies are as subversive as Artmann’s language. They stick. The whole thing is a blast.

Rogue Artists’ contribution was to add even more horsing around. Masked performers contributed to the bizarre merriment. Silhouettes projected on the screen were quaint additions to Gruber’s off-the-wall irritants. A toy Superman and Robin wound up in bed together for a spanking and sex. A massive newspaper-puppet Frankenstein, assembled onstage, was striking sculpture.

With his limited vocal technique, York really chansonniered. He was more engaging emcee than wild man (Gruber goes to town in his own performances), but not having the temptation to make a beautiful sound worked to his advantage. The metallic amplification did not. Andreas Mitisek, the company’s artistic and general director, conducted a chamber ensemble colorfully and musically.

As for “Enoch Arden,” the tear-jerking tale of a sailor long away at sea who returns to find his wife remarried, it went on and on. Strauss’ piano accompaniment is not continuous and functions like silent-movie music. The piece has an inexplicable following. Glenn Gould was a champion. Patrick Stewart has just recorded it with Emmanuel Ax. The pianist Saturday was Lisa Sylvester, who was understated. What fun Rogue Artists might have had with it.

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mark.swed@latimes.com