TV REVIEWS / OPERA ON PBS : ‘McTeague’: Music Loses in This Version

Tired of reading about multimedia? Then try “synthesis of forms,” as Robert Altman labels “The Real McTeague,” which begins a provocative double-bill on PBS’ “Great Performances” tonight (at 8 on KPBS-TV Channel 15 and KVCR-TV Channel 24, 9 p.m. on KCET-TV Channel 28).

The spine and stimulus for the program is William Bolcom’s opera “McTeague,” which Altman directed in its premiere last November at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Scenes from that production are contrasted with their equivalents from Erich von Stroheim’s 1924 silent film “Greed,” with Studs Terkel reading the relevant passages from Frank Norris’ novel “McTeague” as voice-overs.

As a cultural document, the results are fascinating. The staging of the opera and the action of the film have an eerie resonance, obviously due in no small measure to both Stroheim’s and Altman’s respect for the original (Altman also co-wrote the opera libretto with Arnold Weinstein). It also makes a handy condensation of the tale, showing just the highlights, while Terkel fills in the gaps with deft synopsis.

But as a dramatic retelling of the story, it suffers from the very triple vision and brevity that make it so effectively educational. Redundancy is actively courted here, and it is the opera--particularly the music--that suffers.

With just bits and pieces, the music has no cumulative impact. Since McTeague is cast as a tenor (Ben Heppner, heroically ample in voice and girth) and Trina as a soprano (seductive Catherine Malfitano), the impression these emotionally exigent moments give of the opera is one of continuously high tessitura passions. Contrast and context are not a priority here.

Then when the story comes to its tripartite conclusion--the most affecting part of this synthesis, the dark humor of the opera’s “We’re Dead Men” playing off the heated desert scenes of the film--Altman and writers James Arntz and Geoffrey Baer can’t resist adding their own postscript, as if novel, film and opera had all left the moral unclear.

When he’s left with just Norris’ words, Terkel proves an engrossing narrator. The production is quietly skillful, weaving the disparate imagery together effectively. But if this is “The Real McTeague,” what then was the opera and film, to say nothing of the original book?