San Francisco Classical Voice

The many challenges of mounting and performing Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring, one of the composer's most delightful operas, were met with aplomb Friday by the San Francisco Opera Center, featuring the Adler fellows, in the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason. The chances to see this work staged are fewer than you might expect. Requiring ten excellent singers and three children, it's tricky to produce for a chamber opera. Further, because the opera balances broad farce with a deep current of feeling, only alert actors and a sensitive director can maintain the equilibrium and bring Eric Crozier's libretto fully to life.

In the story, set in 1900 in the fictional Suffolk town of Loxford, the May Day committee, chaired by the town's domineering philanthropist and moral authority, Lady Billows, cannot find a suitably virginal candidate to be Queen of the May, so they reluctantly turn to Albert, a mild-mannered clerk at his mother's greengrocery. Shy, awkward, and tied to Mum's apron strings, Albert longs to experience the adult social world, which he observes in the erotic play between his friends, Sid and Nancy. He naturally is horrified to find himself celebrated for the very qualities he wants to overcome. After the festival feast, thanks partly to a glass of spiked lemonade, courtesy of Sid, Albert screws up his courage and goes out on a spree.

Britten wrote the music for his cast of seasoned regulars, so it's lucky that the Opera Center seems to have a nearly inexhaustible supply of vocal talent. Even so, one very familiar S.F. Opera veteran, Catherine Cook, was included alongside the Adler fellows. In the title role, Todd Geer sang with clarity and sweetness of tone. He has a warm, resonant voice but used its power sparingly, as is appropriate for the character. He was an engaging and likable Albert, with terrific comic timing and specificity in his stage business. In the important solo scene at the end of Act Two, when Albert finally makes up his mind, Geer became quite affecting, tossing a coin to decide his fate and then letting the audience see the joyful terror in his face as he read the result.

As Sid and Nancy, James Westman and Katia Giselle Escalera were exceptional. Westman's bluff physicality and sly smile contrasted well with Geer's Albert. He and Escalera created quite a believable relationship between lovers. Escalera also shone in her own lyrical moments.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from Albert and his friends are the townsfolk and Albert's mother. Where Britten's music for the former group is tuneful and naturalistic, that of the latter has the heightened contours and exaggerated gestures of parody. These are the farce characters, led by Twyla Robinson's crusading Lady Billows. Robinson has a commanding soprano that was occasionally a little overpowering in the intimate Cowell Theater. Still, her tone is sharply focused and she shaped her character's difficult musical lines with sensitivity and variety. Her maid and factotum, Florence Pike, was Catherine Cook, a known quantity with extensive main-stage experience. Her comic presence and rich-timbred voice were a splendid addition to the cast.

Suzanne Ramo was hilarious as the chirrupy schoolteacher, Miss Wordsworth, while Kyu Won Han's Mr. Gedge, Brian Anderson's Mr. Upfold, John Ames' Superintendent Budd, and Tami Petty's Mrs. Herring were all equally well sung and individually characterized. Even the children (especially Laura Matters in the slightly more important role of Emmie) turned in strong performances. The 12-piece orchestra, under William Lacey, smoothly realized Britten's score.

In the third act, the opera takes a more serious turn, culminating in a moving threnody for the supposedly dead Albert. In this scene, Lotfi Mansouri did his best directing. The individual reactions of each of the characters seemed truthful, as the farce characters temporarily broke out of their rigidity and the entire group united. At the end of the ensemble, when Albert enters, the others noticed him in Mansouri's beautifully choreographed double take that simultaneously released a tide of emotions and returned the audience to the world of the comedy. But that world has changed slightly. The Opera Center production lifts Albert Herring to a happily ambiguous resolution that only the best productions of the work can achieve.

(Michael Zwiebach holds a Ph D in musicology from UC Berkeley, specializing in opera, and a lecturer for the San Francisco Opera. )

©2000 Michael Zwiebach, all rights reserved