San Francisco Classical Voice

OPERA REVIEW

San Francisco Opera Center Merola Program

July 14, 2006

Ani Maldjian

Sara Jobin

Transformations

By Janos Gereben

The San Francisco Opera Merola Program is fishing bravely in troubled waters. On Friday and Sunday, the young singers produced outstanding performances of Conrad Susa's Transformations in Fort Mason Center's Cowell Theater.

In 1971, just three years before clinical depression drove her to suicide, Anne Sexton wrote Transformations, a disturbing but strangely hilarious mutation of fairy tales (a conceit much improved upon by Stephen Sondheim in his 1988 Into the Woods). Conrad Susa's opera version of Transformations premiered in 1973, following Sexton's book in record time. By 1980, San Francisco Spring Opera produced the work, with a remarkable young cast including Roberta Alexander, Pamela South, Susan Quittmeyer, and John Duykers. (How long ago was that? The major donor was Werner Erhard, of the then-trendy, now-forgotten "transformation" seminar program.)

The current production's eight soloists (each playing several roles and participating in ensemble work as well) are Ani Maldjian (Princess), Jamie Chamberlin (Sexton), Blythe Gaissert (Witch), Noah Stewart (Rumpelstilskin), Brian Thorsett (Magic Object), Joshua Kohl (Prince), David Lara (Iron Hans), and David Crawford (King). First among musical equals, Maldjian impressed with her energy and Sinatra-class diction. Stewart's stage work received the most immediate and palpable audience response.

The Jobin-Goode team at work

An eight-piece orchestra (or band) is conducted by the inestimable Sara Jobin. Famed local choreographer Joe Goode is the stage director, moving the singers around in a virtual blur of action and imagination. Erik Flatmo's stage design and Kathleen Lussier-West's costumes do a great deal with what is likely to be a modest budget. (The composer himself husbanded resources well, having a quartet represent Snow White's seven dwarves.)

The men of the Merola cast

Photos by Kristen Loken

Transformations is among Susa's finest and most accessible scores. Jazzy and melodic, the music contains traces of Weill, Sondheim, Ives, the Andrews Sisters, and a quote or two from Mahler. It's not a mish-mash, but rather a pleasing amalgam of contemporary musical idiom. There is much declamation-narration-sprechstimme here, and it's to the credit of the conductor and the singers that the (welcome) backup of supertitles rarely needs to be used.

Back to the seventies

The stories that make up the opera originate with Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, but the adventures of Rapunzel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and their colleagues take on new, frequently piquant meaning and are told in anachronistic terms. The language, at the same time, anchors the work in the Seventies:

It is not enough to read Hesse
And drink clam chowder
We must have the answers.

Hansel and Gretel somehow becomes a dissertation on mother-love vs. cannibalism, Iron Hans a contemplation of insanity ("Take an old lady in a cafeteria / staring at the meatloaf, / crying: 'Mama! Mama!'"), and Rumplestiltskin even more scary than the original:

I am your dwarf.
I am the enemy within.
I am the boss of your dreams.
I am the law of your members.

How can this material turn into a hearty, if obviously sinister, comedy? Susa, the production, and the cast provided the answer to that question.