Stravinsky Cut Short but Sweet

Sometimes the so-called “Great Performances” on PBS play for the lowest common denominator. Last month’s recycled Pavarotti circus-travelogue was a case in point.

Once in a while, the series actually strives for sophistication. Check out “The Rake’s Progress,” in a production conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen on KCET tonight at 9.

Igor Stravinsky’s opera, first performed in Venice in 1951, isn’t exactly in a popular league with “Pagliacci” and “Carmen.” This, for better or worse, is a thinking-person’s challenge.

The period libretto by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman, presumably inspired by Hogarth, slides dangerously from sentimental drama to black comedy to bleak satire to stark tragedy. The score--an inventive conglomeration of bravura arias, buffo rituals, subtle recitatives and wry instrumental commentary predicated on ever-chugging ostinatos--appeals to the intellect as it refocuses 18th century conventions. It also appeals to the emotions as Stravinsky humanizes an ancient morality play.

Despite its inherent complexities, however, the opera is eminently accessible. It has wit, charm and pathos. It even has tunes.

The version shown here--and “version” certainly is the right noun--emanates from Swedish television. It does not pretend to record a stage performance. This is a film, an adaptation.

That means certain liberties can be taken. The action is opened up, distanced from the limitations of the proscenium. Cameras dabble in close-ups, flashbacks, flash-aheads; they toy with color and focus. Using a prerecorded soundtrack, the actors run and jump and gesticulate, even sing with their mouths closed, without endangering the line or exhausting the breath.

Cinematic translation also means, of course, that the producers can tamper with the composer. The technique worked fine, many years ago, for Jean-Pierre Ponnelle in his illuminating movie version of “Madama Butterfly.” It worked even better for Ingmar Bergman in his virtually definitive interpretation of Mozart’s “Die Zauberflote,” a.k.a. “Trollflojten,” a.k.a. “The Magic Flute.”

When the self-same Bergman staged “The Rake’s Progress” in Stockholm in 1961, Stravinsky himself deemed the production perfect. Too bad it was never filmed.

The new film, directed by Inger Aby, shows occasional flashes of the rich Bergman style. But, for the most part, it remains literal and pretty, realistic and sweet. It makes economical use of studio space and some antique locales, but takes few narrative chances.

The only serious problem involves someone’s decision to squeeze the three-act opera onto a Procrustean two-hour bed. Cut, presumably with Salonen’s blessing, is the magic-bread-machine episode that closes Act 2. Cut is the entire epilogue, and some irksome snippets leave gaps in between.

Salonen may not have done enough to defend Stravinsky’s formal structure. Nevertheless, he conducts the remaining music with brio that never precludes clarity, with splendid rhythmic vitality, a keen sense of balance and a fine concern for shifting textures. This, obviously, is his kind of music.

The cast, dominated by Greg Fedderly in the title role, is equally picturesque and mellifluous. The young tenor, who has come up imposingly through the ranks at our Music Center Opera, sings Tom Rakewell with rare fluidity, elegance and ease. His constant wide-open smile in the early scenes makes him look loony long before he gets to Bedlam, and he doesn’t break all hearts in “Where art thou, Venus?”--which the composer’s widow described as “the most touching music Igor ever wrote.” Still, Fedderly is never less than handsome, sympathetic and authoritative.

Barbara Hendricks is lyricism personified as the aptly named Anne Truelove. Her only weak moment comes, unfortunately, in a rather lethargic performance of the great cabaletta “I go to him,” capped with a reticent High C. Hakan Hagegard tastefully underplays the villainy of Nick Shadow, and neat cameos are contributed by Arild Hellegard as Sellem, the preening auctioneer; by Erik Saeden as Anne’s craggy father; and Gunilla Soderstrom as Mother Goose, the suavely bawdy bordello-keeper.

The only controversial casting involves Brian Asawa, a youthful countertenor assigned the flourishes of Baba, the bearded lady whom Tom marries (a role Stravinsky intended for a mezzo-soprano in the manner of Ebe Stignani). Asawa sings with astonishing purity of tone, steadfastly avoids all hint of caricature and stresses sensuality without even attempting a female impersonation. Although the homoerotic impulses that result make a certain kind of ironic sense in context, it isn’t the sense the composer had in mind.

Everyone articulates the English text crisply. This makes the English subtitles redundant as well as distracting.

* “The Rake’s Progress” airs at 9 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28, with a simulcast on KUSC-FM (91.5).