The long-overdue company premiere of "The Dream of Valentino" by the Minnesota Opera, which opened Saturday in St. Paul, is a dream come true for long-time admirers of composer Dominick Argento.
Argento, who was present at the birth of the organization that became the Minnesota Opera more than 50 years ago, has had eight other shows produced here, most importantly "Casanova's Homecoming" (twice) and "The Aspern Papers." He couldn't hope for a more effective, cinematic performance of "Valentino" than this one.
The quick-paced, media-savvy portrait of silent movie star Rudolph Valentino had its world premiere at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in 1994 and is as compelling and valid today as it was in the Clinton era or the Roaring '20s. It's a blistering commentary on how popular artists are packaged and sold, and Valentino was one of the earliest examples.
Stage director Eric Simonson and his creative team brilliantly use the iconography of the era, from the silent-movie typeface on the title slide that's projected on the curtain before the show, to flickering scenes from Valentino's films and newsreels of the day, to energize the story and create a genuinely multimedia performance.
The production opened Saturday night at the Ordway Center in St. Paul and has just three more performances before it closes on Sunday.
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One measure of a great opera is the inevitability of the material, and Valentino's life was the stuff of opera from the time of his arrival in New York in 1913 to his abrupt demise 13 years later. There's so much material to work with that Argento only scratches the surface with this concise, barely two-hour account, told in 13 scenes. But what a story.
Though comparisons don't really work, the closest parallel to Valentino in our day would be James Dean, in terms of sex appeal, celebrity and how the two men crashed and burned. The new production has the perfect tenor for the role, even down to the similarity in names — Twin Cities-based James Valenti, who has the matinee-idol good looks and voice to make the character come alive.
Valenti, whose career was launched by the Minnesota Opera and who next month will sing the role of Pinkerton in "Madama Butterfly" at the Met, glides and foxtrots and seduces effortlessly, as if the part was written for him. He doesn't get much chance to show what he can do vocally, which is one of the show's weaknesses — we don't learn enough about Valentino's interior life, other than his scene early in Part One where he dreams of being a world-class actor, and the Part Two solo where he tries to regain his grip on reality. But Valenti's gifts shine through, especially in Scene 9, where Valentino is in his dressing room after a film fiasco and wonders about his future.
Just as ideally cast is bass-baritone Alan Held , who has the Mephistophelean role of the Mogul, a Hollywood studio boss who makes Valentino a star and then just as easily breaks him with gossip about Valentino's sexuality. The Mogul gets some of the best lines, and Held, an internationally known artist whose next role is Jockanaan in Strauss' "Salome" in Munich, makes the most of them. In the end, he has the booming last word in a fiery duet with soprano Brenda Harris, boasting that he gave Valentino the greatest gift — immortality, such as it is.
Harris is effective as June Mathis, the New York screenwriter who discovers him, falls in love with him and tries to keep him on track during his meteoric rise, and among the other women who are drawn into his orbit, mezzo-soprano Eve Gigliotti is especially striking as the wild-haired Nazimova, the Madonna-like star of the silent era.
It's a true ensemble piece, though, with 10 singers having important parts to play, and the cast has amazing singers, such as Angela Mortellaro and Virginia Vargas, who are only lightly used.
Argento's orchestral score is ingenious and endlessly interesting — more engaging than the vocal lines, it has to be said — with wailing saxophones, jazz and tango rhythms, occasional solo piano vamping and melodrama, all contributing to the hurly-burly effect, conducted by Christoph Campestrini. One stroke of particular genius is in the final scene, when Valentino lies in an open coffin in a New York funeral parlor, and a magnificent Victrola plays a popular song of the day , an elegy that calls Valentino "a new star in heaven."
In the program notes, the composer refers to this production as a revised version, and about 40 minutes were cut from the runtime of 20 years ago. One scene that could use a touch-up is the ending; it comes to a natural crescendo with a mob of fans breaking into the funeral home, but it muddles on after that and misses the chance to bring down the curtain emphatically.
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Argento was in the audience Saturday and took his bows from his seat, rather than on stage. What a moment it must have been for him, to enjoy a revival as electrifying as this one, to keep "Valentino" alive in the repertoire.
