San Francisco Classical Voice

The Pippin wit is always welcome — consider the pithy condensation of Geronte's character, as he speaks of Manon: "She's a jewel to be flaunted, all I ever wanted" — but the real importance of his work is in making meat-and-potatoes portions come alive AND stay true to the text AND not forcing the singers to choose between music or text.

Domenico Oliva's libretto is a rather dim affair, and if you translate the opening chorus mechanically, it's textually awkward and musically impossible. There is little you can do with "Ave, sera gentile, che discendi / col tuo corteo di zefferi e di stelle. / Ave, cara ai poeti ed agli amanti" — unless you're Pippin.

It's still not great poetry, but Pippin sets the mood and you can actually sing it in English:

"Let us welcome the evening as it hovers

Laden with stars and cooled by playful breezes,

Ever friendly to poets and to lovers."

Add to that "setting" Pippin's sly, inimitable introductions to opera, and his programming of an offbeat season, and you have enough reason to follow the Pocket through the upcoming "Maria Padilla," "Ariodante," "Bluebeard," "Stiffelio" and — honest! — "Norma." (Why not "Aida"?)

What do operas sound like, as the eight-member Pocket Philharmonic and a cast of moderately experienced singers try to match the expectations of audiences normally attending productions with a "cast of thousands"?

Without fail, the beginning of every single Pocket Opera production I attended in the company's 26 years evoked for me powerfully the memory of a warm summer night on the main square of a small Italian town. There, among people strolling by, eating, drinking and discussing the events of the day, a small band played music from opera. It was as different from an evening inside La Scala as anything can be, and yet the memory is a treasured one.

Pocket Opera quality goes up and down with the times, but that feeling of intimate, heartfelt music-making is always there. And, in the case of today's "Manon Lescaut," the Pocket Philharmonic played circles around the Italian band in my memory. With Pippin at the piano and first violinist Barbara Riccardi playing beautifully, the musical performance was grounded convincingly, authentically. Diane Grubbe on flute and piccolo, Kathleen Conner on oboe, Gregor Pierce on clarinet and Kathleen Johannessen on bassoon played up a storm, no, produced a great ensemble sound, but without cranking up the volume, as it were.

And so we come to the singers, and a problem with volume control.

The Legion's Florence Gould Theater is a small, elegant, round jewel box, all-white, decorated in the Louis XVI style, built in 1924 by George Applegarth, architect of the museum itself. It seats 300, but feels more like a large living room than a theater.

In this setting, and with tiny band playing quietly upstage, why would you belt the music out? Most of them did, more is the pity, the principal singers, especially, blowing the opportunity to sing quietly and beautifully in a setting that both allows and demands just that.

Bruce Nelson's Des Grieux was the chief offender. He started from forte and kept getting louder. Singing "big," alas, did not help with a disconcerting habit of sliding around the notes. Todd Donovan's Lescaut could have been perfectly acceptable in much larger companies — he has the voice for a career — but he too joined the huffing-puffing party on its merry way to blow the walls down (never mind this might have brought Julio Villa y Prades' mural of "The Apotheosis of the California Soldier" from the ceiling).

Margaret Genovese, in the title role, stood apart from the cast — in quality and, unfortunately, in body language. She has a voice big enough for the War Memorial and her intonation was on a professional level. There is a kind of stiffness in her vocal performance, and blandness in acting, but more than enough vocal heft to scale operatic heights.

Smaller roles and the ensemble — Maria Mikheyenko, Diana Pray, Naomi Braun, Jessica Deardorff — fared better. Mark D. Lew, as the Lamplighter, used his solo opportunity well; Wayne Wong's Innkeep and Robert Seidel's Dance Master were fine.

I don't know if opera audiences require certain production values, even on the Pocket level, but I am certain this "Lescaut" would have looked much better without those "costumes." Semi-staged opera doesn't need a half a uniform here, an awkward-looking gown there. Keep it simple, keep it "real."

There is a change at the Pocket Opera that I regret. It seems that the age of the singers has crept up over the years. One of the exciting things about "early Pippin" was the opportunity to hear very young singers, even students. It's different now: over-all quality may be higher, but the joy of discovery is in shorter supply.