Transforming effect on men

“We tell you stories no one else tells,” Andreas Mitisek writes in his introduction to the program book for this year’s Long Beach Opera season. It’s the company’s 26th, and Mitisek’s first as general director. The mission remains the same as under the company’s founder, Michael Milenski, who stepped down as general manager last year: operas, often recent or neglected, given daring productions by emerging performers full of life.

This year’s two operas, presented last weekend at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Center of Cal State Long Beach and to be repeated next weekend, are Astor Piazzolla’s “Maria de Buenos Aires” and Richard Strauss’ “The Silent Woman.” Both are little-known major works by two of the most popular and emotionally open composers of the 20th century. Written a little more than 30 years apart, both also, though in very different ways, concern the transforming effect of a younger woman on an older man.

“Maria de Buenos Aires” is a masterpiece. “The Silent Woman” (better known by its German title, “Die Schweigsame Frau”) is not one of Strauss’ best operas. But, premiered in 1935, just after the National Socialists took power in Germany, it is remarkable for its joie de vivre and, more important, its moments of profound old-world warmth, affection and rapture.

With these two operas, with Mitisek (who has been a regular presence on the podium in Long Beach for several years) conducting both works, and with Isabel Milenski (one of the company’s most impressive fresh faces in recent years) directing “The Silent Woman,” there was every hope that the country’s most cutting-edge opera company would continue right on track Sunday.

And well it might have. “The Silent Woman” is just a touch too much of a technical challenge for the company, but the production maintains the Long Beach reputation for feistiness. But “Maria” ... poor, poor “Maria.”

Piazzolla wrote his “little tango opera” in 1967 with a young Argentine poet, Horacio Ferrer. With an extraordinarily poetic libretto and haunting music, it does tell a story no one else does. A poet (El Duende) summons the memory of a mythic Argentine femme fatale who was “born on a day when God was drunk.” He summons her through the pores of the Buenos Aires asphalt; he summons her “heavy, low hooker’s voice”; he, more to the point, summons her “with the hot masses of the tango.”

Musically, the opera is an Art of the Tango. Not only is the bandoneon, Piazzolla’s accordion-like instrument, central to the 11-member instrumental ensemble, but it is also a character in the opera (which also has among its cast of characters the Sleep Sparrow of Buenos Aires, the Voices of the Men Who Came Back From Mystery and a Choir of Psychoanalysts). Different kinds of tangos, traditional and new hybrids (such as tango fugue or tango sonata), give the score a carnal dimension.

Despite her penchant for debauchery, Maria is ultimately a force of nature and a savior. The opera is her death and transfiguration, the poet continually bringing her back to life. Saint/whore of the tango floor, she touches all of Buenos Aires, from marionettes to the Voices of Spaghetti Kneaders who will never forget her.

But I hope that those in the sold-out audience Saturday night will be able to quickly forget Long Beach Opera’s cliche-ridden production. Director and designer John Lloyd Davies set the opera in a simple tango bar: tables on either side, a checkered dance floor in the middle, the instrumental ensemble at the rear. Chairs hang from the ceiling. So, unfortunately, do illuminated red shoes, which a doll-clutching child Maria jumps for. Three dancers execute awful choreography (by Nicola Bowie).

Noelia Moncada, an energetic Maria, shows promise and looks the part, but first someone has to tell her the opera isn’t “Evita of Buenos Aires.” Everything else is bland, including Coco Trivisonno, the bandoneonist, and Mitisek (who conducts from the piano). Even the amplification and subtitles of the Spanish text proved inept.

“The Silent Woman,” Sunday afternoon, showed Long Beach Opera being Long Beach Opera again. Milenski’s production of Strauss’ only true comic opera -- based on Ben Jonson’s farce about an old admiral who can’t stand noise and is tricked into marrying a young woman he expects to be quiet and dutiful -- overplays the farce card with brash silliness. Ultimately, though, it finds the work’s sentimental soul.

With her characteristic exuberance, Milenski has the rich old admiral, Morosus, sleep in a dinghy with a life vest over his pajamas. His old housekeeper could be a model for a Duane Hanson sculpture. John Collins’ set is a dilapidated house. Sarah Brown’s costumes are amusingly Fellini-esque and seem to suit a compelling ensemble cast that includes Rod Nelman as a burlesque Morosus, Susan Nicely as his maid and Michael Chioldi as his conniving barber. Anna Vikre had her shrill moments as Aminta, the silent wife who is anything but silent, but she also could soar in authentic Straussian soprano fashion. Ryan MacPherson was the dashing Henry Morosus, the admiral’s nephew and the real husband of Aminta in this complicated comedy.

Back to form in the pit, Mitisek led an engaged performance. It may have been all he could do to keep a scrappy orchestra together in this long, intricate, radiant score, but he did it.

*

Long Beach Opera

What: “Maria de Buenos Aires,” 2 p.m. Saturday; “The Silent Woman,” 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: Carpenter Performing Arts Center, 6200 Atherton St., Long Beach

Price: $55 to $110

Contact: (562) 439-2580