Love Is Battered by Storms ‘On Gold Mountain’

Los Angeles Opera may not have hit the theatrical mother lode with “On Gold Mountain,” but it has delivered an engaging one-act piece that could prove popular in community and workshop productions--as intended. The first commission of the company’s three-year “Voices of California” project, “On Gold Mountain” had its premiere over the weekend at the Japan America Theatre.

Composed by Nathan Wang on a libretto by Lisa See, author of the family history bestseller of the same title, “On Gold Mountain” works something like a reverse roller coaster. It takes off like a rocket through a brisk group of generation-telescoping set pieces and then slows down for conflict and consideration, before tacking on a feel-good, full-ensemble finale.

The conflicts of this story of the lives and loves of Chinese immigrant Fong See and his American wife, Ticie, are intercultural and intergenerational, to be sure, but above all interpersonal. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl reflect--much later--on what went wrong.

Which works. This is not the History Channel, after all. Larger dimensions might have allowed more room for the period- and place-specific detail that makes See’s book so engrossing, but for singing action there is still no substitute for passion.

Which is where See-the-librettist lets down See-the-memoirist. Both Fong See’s great profession of love--”I am lost in her bouquet,” he confides often and with amplitude--and Ticie’s bitter sense of betrayal are expressed as monologues. Their moments of meeting and of conflict pass surprisingly quickly and more as matters of observation than of experience.

Wang’s colorful, eminently accessible music also works best with the individuals. The composer has given Fong See all the makings of a hit ballad, while Ticie gets bravura brooding. For interaction, however, they get mostly musical chatter.

As the patriarchal entrepreneur Fong See, Chinese tenor Ge-Gun Wang began the Saturday matinee with a somewhat covered voice. He warmed up nicely, though, becoming clear, articulate and personable, and nailing the out-of-nowhere high climax of his ballad authoritatively.

Shana Blake Hill’s Ticie was strongly characterized vocally. She entered--without any of the background accorded Fong See--in fresh, spunky radiance and matured into warm, layered reflection.

Both moved comfortably in Joyce Kim Lee’s attractive costumes and Andrew Tsao’s simple staging. The shallow stage kept the motion lateral, like a side-scrolling video game, but within those confines it was natural and unfussy.

Karen TenEyck’s designs also did much with little. She used projected backdrops and evocative lighting by Marc I. Rosenthal behind handsome, minimalist sets, helping clarify chronology and geography in a story that moved from China to Los Angeles--twice--over several generations.

Cal State Long Beach soprano Judy J. Hur sparkled rather girlishly in the trousers role of the juvenile Fong See, and Korean tenor Duk Hee Cho grumbled poignantly as Fong See’s wastrel father. Mezzo Kristin Rothfuss was a suitably blowzy Madame Matilde, and Eunmi Park, Jonathan Wu, John Craig Johnson, Maria Cristina Viguilla-Navarro and Lydia Shin handled small roles with honor and conviction.

Leland Sun conducted with sympathetic brio. Wang includes a handful of Chinese instruments in his ensemble, but the ethnic elements are not far advanced on “The King and I.” The orchestra, composed of both pros and community players, made a fine, balanced sound under Sun’s deft leadership.

The busy and well-drilled chorus was provided by the Los Angeles Chinese Chorale. As part of the community concept behind the piece, this chorus, many of the minor parts and the student members of the orchestra will change when the production moves to the Barclay Theatre in Irvine next weekend.

“On Gold Mountain,” Barclay Theatre, UC Irvine, (949) 854-4646, Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m. $10-$20.