San Francisco Classical Voice

Forget history, forget Schiller (on whose play the opera is allegedly based), forget Shaw's superb St. Joan, forget whatever you might have gotten out of movies, from Carl Dreyer's masterpiece to (heaven forgive him) Otto Preminger. Just forget pretty much everything, and follow a story largely "compiled" by the composer himself. Tchaikovsky's Joan leaves the farm, takes up arms, defeats the English (so far so good), but then she falls in love with the knight Lionel from the Duke of Burgundy's army, falls apart, and goes to the stake. Honestly! Here, the Mother Church has absolutely nothing to do with Joan's fall, no problem with her interpreting God's will directly, there is no court intrigue, or Inquisition, or English-French conflict, just one thing: Joan is in love, so she must die.

At "only" two and a quarter hours (rather than the original of nearly four hours), Maid is lopsided, with an 80-minute first act, and it's handicapped by long scenes that stop the action cold — such as the lengthy duet between King Charles VII and his favorite mistress, Agnes. OK, so musically and dramatically, Maid is a no-go. And yet, you should absolutely go.

It's a fine physical production (Robert Dahlstrom's, clean and sparse), Donald Runnicles is making the best of the score (even if not always allowing it to breathe in its symphonic glory), Ian Robertson's Opera Chorus is singing sublimely (and very Russian-ly), but — most important — here's a brilliant, virtually flawless cast. If you like great singing with your opera, head to the War Memorial.

Zajick, of course, is well worth the price of admission all by her lonesome — there are trumpets in the voice, and honey, the projection is awesome, even a half-successful messa di voce impressed. Her farewell aria to the farm (something awfully close to Lensky's aria in Eugene Onegin) was especially memorable.

Joan's father is sung by Philip Skinner, in his best performance recently. Young Sean Panikkar is Joan's saintly would-be fiance, with an authentic Russian tenor sound (even if the recent Merola participant's family hails from Sri Lanka).

For the best of real Russian tenors, there is Misha Didyk (from next door, Ukraine), singing the role of the King, more effectively and powerfully than at his other appearances in the same house. Karen Slack is Agnes, doing well in the duet (which is her only bit in the opera). Lionel is Rod Gilfry, and he too is doing better than at any time here recently. Philip Cutlip's Dunois stands up to Didyk's King both dramatically and vocally.

Lawrence Pech's choreography is excellent. In the many danced or mimed scenes (such as a long one about Death doing his thing), the corps includes such major local dancers as the S.F. Ballet's Peter Brandenhoff.

The director's use of the chorus as spectators in modern dress works better than you'd suspect. Divided by the stage-on-stage, the chorus watches, participates, and does Job One: sings wonderfully. Balances, security in singing softly or loudly, diction, and movement — all went swimmingly.

As for the immolation scene, it's a techno-wonder, minus sufficient coloring to make it look like a fire. A combination of highly compressed steam and dry ice blows smoke like a jet engine, as a backstage crew manages individual portions of scene: a kind of cloud enveloping Joan's head, a huge column shooting up behind her, and a third effect covering the ground ... without bothering the chorus too much. It wasn't long ago that the American Guild of Musical Artists went to bat to protect the singers from stage smoke, but no coughs or protests were heard this time at the smokiest scene ever, outdoing even the final conflagration of Götterdämmerung.)