Comic Foibles of a ‘Countess’

Vienna in the late 19th century was addicted to the waltz and schmaltz of operetta. Lovers fell in love dancing to Johann Strauss’ melodies. Even Mahler’s symphonies were what they were, in part, because he, like everyone else at the time, was a nut for Strauss.

But it was a very different Vienna in which Emmerich Kalman wrote “Countess Maritza” in 1924. No longer was the operetta the dance music of its time; no more did the foibles of operetta characters so purposefully capture the essence of a city giddy as it tottered between its sense of glorious past and the irresistible pull of future.

Turn-of-the-century Vienna was the most intellectually sophisticated city in the world. But World War I shattered its belief in itself, and the city began to long only for a vanished past. Operetta turned nostalgic and followed.

On Saturday night, L.A. Opera chose to make its first foray into Viennese operetta with “Countess Maritza.” This is in keeping with what has so far proved to be a decadent season for the company. The melodramatic “La Boheme” has been its highest artistic achievement, surrounded by two operas, the tawdry “Fedora” and the new “Florencia en el Amazonas,” both of which further mine Puccini’s cliches. In fact, the Music Center currently seems as desperate as a cineplex, filled with remakes like “Rent” and “Room Service.”

“Countess Maritza” is not fresh, but it has a subversive charm. Kalman was a close contemporary of Bartok; they were classmates in Budapest, and Kalman attempted to rejuvenate Viennese Romanticism through Hungarian folk music just as Bartok did Modernism.

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Kalman places the Hungarian countryside and Viennese society at interesting odds. The Countess, a desirable Viennese noble, has retreated to one of her Hungarian estates to flee superficial suitors after her for her money. There she meets an impoverished Count Tassilo, who had taken a job, incognito, as her estate manager to help provide a dowry for his sister Lisa. Fueled by the soulful passion of gypsy music, Maritza and Tassilo fall inevitably in love, as they wend their way through the usual comic intrigues and misunderstandings.

Kalman goes only so far with the subversion, however. The czardas may lie closer to the heart of “Countess Maritza” than the waltz, but Kalman was an ingratiating composer. He had a gift for melody and was a master at crafting elaborate ensemble numbers, eager and able to win over the audience with either waltz or czardas.

But there is certainly more potential to the piece than the pie- in-the-face production L.A. Opera has plucked from Santa Fe Opera. It sets the action in the 1920s, Viennese flappers descending on the Hungarian estate. Maxine Willi Klein’s scenery, more Santa Fe tile and adobe than Hungarian, may have looked OK with the desert as backdrop but just looks cheap on the Dorothy Chandler stage. Dona Granata’s exaggerated costumes are maybe a not very good joke.

Worse, the production by the late Lou Galterio (sung in “moon/June” English translated by Nigel Douglas), here entrusted to Linda Brovsky, mishandles an unusually versatile cast. And this produces a weird kind of nostalgia all its own. One remembers the provocative sensuality of Constance Hauman, one of the most exciting young American singers on the lyric stage today, when she got her start at Long Beach Opera last decade, and now we have her gripping, sultry new recording of “Lulu” on CD. It is almost painful to witness her as a Lisa, boop-boop-a-doo cute.

Ashley Putnam, another sensuous American singer, is asked to be an overbearing Maritza and appears understandably uncomfortable in one tacky costume after another. Kevin Anderson is an all-American Tassilo who can sing and act and dance. Gert Henning-Jensen, as the vulgar Baron Zsupan jumps exceedingly well and often. Robert Orth, who was Harvey Milk in the Stewart Wallace opera, is wasted in the small role of the snotty Prince Popolescu, though terrific anyway. Alayne Faraone sings Manja’s milky gypsy song.

“Countess Maritza” is a long show. The drama resolves itself pretty much by the end of the second act, yet this production inflates the third act by inventing a stage role for Tassilo’s aunt, Princess Bozena, and giving her music from another operetta to sing. It turns out that Judith Christin is very funny and her slapstick valet, actor Grant Neale, is a scene-stealer, but they put the show completely out of balance.

Oh, yes, the singing. Voices are good, but the style isn’t. John Crosby, who conducts, is score-bound, inhibiting his singers. Amplification used for the dialogue, and then pulled back for singing, makes matters worse, creating different aural perspectives. (Pacific Opera recently handled this trick in its “Mikado” much better.)

It also might be worth recalling that when L.A. Opera went shopping in Santa Fe the summer of 1995, it passed over a fascinating and musically startling new opera, “Modern Painters,” by a Los Angeles-born and -bred composer, David Lang, that has its musical roots in some of the amplified dance music of our time.

* L.A. Opera repeats “Countess Maritza on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 1 p.m. and Dec. 2, 5 and 7 at 7:30 p.m., at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 S. Grand Ave. $24-$135. (213) 365-3500.