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OPERA REVIEW
Musical Theater
January 19, 2001
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By Jules Langert
A chamber opera with the intriguing Seuss-like title of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat was the effective, unusual, and major part of the College of Marin's current program, "Winter Opera 2001," seen Friday. In Michael Nyman's hour-long chamber opera, based on a story by Oliver Sacks, a mysterious visual impairment is affecting Dr. P's ability to make sense of the things he sees. Dr. P cannot recognize ordinary objects, like a flower, a glove, or a photograph. His students' faces appear unfamiliar to him, and recently he has tried to shake hands with a parking meter.
The title episode occurs as he and his wife are leaving a neurologist's office. Later, we discover the exact nature of his malady and his unique way of coping with it. James Dunn has imaginatively directed this, adding a slyly comical edge to what otherwise is a fascinating and touchingly bizarre case history of a character in deep distress.
Nyman created attractive, singable music, and librettist Christopher Lawrence fashioned believable roles for the soprano, tenor, and baritone who comprise the cast. The romantic but resolutely minimalist instrumental score for strings and keyboards is essentially background music in support of the voices. Closely shadowing the singers, its sometimes swift or sudden shifts of harmony and texture underline changes of mood and expression in the drama onstage.
The convincing and able singer/actors in this performance were baritone Louis Weiner and soprano Gail MacGowan as Dr. P and his wife, with tenor Mark Mueller as the neurologist, Dr. S. The conductor, Paul Smith, kept the performance well paced and running smoothly.
Winter Opera 2001, which runs through January 28, included two shorter works on its program. Village Scenes, a selection of five Hungarian folk songs for female chorus and piano, by Bartok, was staged by Sandi Weldon as a group of choral dances celebrating a peasant wedding. The performance on opening night had considerable charm, though it needed vigor and assurance. A conductor would have helped the chorus immeasurably, more closely matching it to Paul Smith's colorful, expressively charged rendition of the piano part. Excerpts from Bartok's letters read after each song seemed unnecessary and intrusive. They had no discernible purpose and merely diluted the effectiveness of Village Scenes. Poulenc's Cabaret, a "theatrical etude" with songs and choral pieces by Poulenc, while also needing more vigor and panache, evoked a wistful, tender mood reminiscent of French cinema from the 1930s. The sturdy, attractive sets by Marianna Goodheart and Tara Flandreau provided a substantial sense of place from which the gentle whimsy of an idealized Gallic street scene in a surreal vision could unfold. This was a delightful evening of rarely encountered musical theater pieces presented with talent and dedication by an adventurous community of artists and students. The group, led by founder and multitalented artistic director Paul Smith, with an impressive history of pieces performed in recent years, continues its work this summer with pieces by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen and the Austrian H. K. Gruber. (Jules Langert is a composer and teacher who resides in the East Bay.) ©2001 Jules Langert, all rights reserved |