Ghosts appeared, ghosts sang and ghosts were expiated as Los Angeles Opera unveiled its new production of John Corigliano’s 1991 opera, “The Ghosts of Versailles,” in a staging that can only be described as a spectral spectacular. Not since its adventurous (and perilously costly) production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle has L.A. Opera taken such a bold step.
On Saturday, a cast of 80 singers, dancers and acrobats, along with one playful pink pachyderm, filled the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Under the orchestral leadership of James Conlon they produced a dazzling interpretation of an opera whose interweaving plotlines and musical vocabulary span centuries: freely interpolating the comedies of Pierre Beaumarchais; the operas of Mozart and Rossini; the grandiosity of Wagner and Strauss; the modern atonality and aleatoric (chance) techniques of John Cage; with a splash of Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” and the Marx Brothers thrown in for good measure.
The road to Saturday night’s performance began Dec. 17, 1991, when “The Ghosts of Versailles” received its world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. It was conceived as an ultimate blowout to celebrate the Met’s 100th anniversary. But the scale of work was so vast that Corigliano and his librettist, William M. Hoffman, did not deliver the finished product until seven years after the initial deadline.
Ironically, the scale of the production (which wowed audiences at the Met) made the opera too much of a challenge to produce anywhere else. Chicago Lyric Opera tried, with certain cuts and production elements omitted to save costs. Then Corigliano created a chamber-sized version that received several productions. But in its original form, much like its spectral characters, the opera disappeared. That is until Saturday, when L.A. Opera summoned “The Ghosts of Versailles” back from the netherworld and presented it in a grandly scaled new production.
It was a gamble that pays off brilliantly thanks to the exceedingly adroit direction by Tony Award-winner Darko Tresnjak (“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder”); the architectural grandeur of Alexander Dodge’s set design and its fish-eye lens view of Marie Antoinette’s Petit Trianon theater; the lavish period costumes by Linda Cho; the choreography of Peggy Hickey; the sculptural lighting by York Kennedy; and the illustrative projections by Aaron Rhyne.
“The Ghosts of Versailles” plays out on three different time planes. The first realm is the netherworld of Versailles, where the ghostly aristocrats of France pass the time in a boring succession of nostalgic reveries. Having lost their heads to Doctor Guillotine, the singers (who are dressed in black) are accompanied by their headless body doubles dressed in white with their heads shrouded under black hoods. Marie Antoinette (Patricia Racette) is particularly distraught, unable to stop thinking about the world she’s lost, the horrors of the revolution, her trial and execution.
Enter the playwright Beaumarchais (Christopher Maltman), who proposes to restore the spirit of the queen by presenting a performance of a new opera based on the third drama of his Figaro trilogy, “The Guilty Mother,” which takes place 20 years after the events depicted in “The Marriage of Figaro.” “My words,” he proclaims, “have the power to change history!”
The plotlines collide when Figaro (Lucas Meachem), Susanna (Lucy Schaufer), Count Almaviva (Joshua Guerrero), Rosina, aka Countess Almaviva (Guanqun Yu), and Cherubino (Renée Rapier) run headlong into the madness of the French Revolution and the lassitude of the ghosts of Versailles. But there is also romance and all the antics familiar to buffa opera, including a madcap climax to Act 1 (a Turkish delight) that provides an 8-minute star-turn cameo for Patti LuPone as the Pasha’s seductive songstress, Samira.
The third realm is the French Revolution (circa 1793) and the bloody Reign of Terror personified by the opera’s archvillain, Citizen Begearss (Robert Brubaker), truly a rat among men.
“The Ghosts of Versailles” is by turns fascinating, musically provocative, lyrically entrancing and laugh-out-loud outrageous — a feast for the eyes and ears. The plots, however, are so complex they become baffling — a situation the ghosts even find exasperating. There are also times (particularly in Act 2) when less definitely could be more.
Racette gives a commanding performance as Marie Antoinette, combining wistfully naive nostalgia with nightmarish horror. It’s a dialect personified in her opening aria, “Once there was a golden bird.” Intensity is the key to Racette’s performance, accentuated by a voice that can float on the air or slice like a blade.
Her confidant and would-be rescuer, Beaumarchais, is sung with elegance and flair by Maltman. But it’s Meachem’s Figaro who towers over the action, complete with a factotum patter aria that would make Rossini smile and a cross-dressing scene worthy of Groucho Marx.
The wistful nature of romantic love is personified in the dulcet singing of Yu as the Countess and the thwarted lovers Florestine (Stacey Tappan) and Léon (Brenton Ryan), who are also the illegitimate offspring of the Count and Countess.
Ideally the evil figure of Begearss should combine the nastiness of Wagner’s dwarf, Mime, with the imperious power of Puccini’s Scarpia. Unfortunately, Brubaker is not really able to fill those demonic shoes.
At the beginning of this review I said, “ghosts were expiated.” By that, I mean L.A. Opera’s financial specters, which resulted from the production of the “Ring” and the recession, and took the company to the financial brink. “The Ghosts of Versailles” is a bold declaration that the company has returned. When Figaro proclaims his newfound power in the opera, proclaiming, “I’m home,” Los Angeles Opera can proudly make the same claim.
Jim Farber is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.
