Mozart on the Road

One night last week, a Terre Haute audience sat in attentive silence: it was seeing the first act of a Mozart opera and found it could understand almost every word. It let out a few experimental giggles at an early joke, gathered confidence as it took in the elaborate and precise buffoonery, and finally laughed aloud when one swaggering character entered sporting a long, blond wig. Said one listener to his companion : "You don't often see anything like this in Terre Haute." Said the other: "I've never seen anything like this anywhere."

The reaction is characteristic of audiences in East Coast and Midwest states, where the New England Opera Theater is making its first road tour. "They arrive all set to be bored," says Director Boris Goldovsky. "For the first five minutes, everybody is on his best behavior. They came to endure culture; they're in for it. Maybe they can sneak out at intermission, but they doubt it. But, from the moment the count enters, they know this is entertainment. They're actually supposed to have a good time--and they do."

What tickled Terre Haute--and two dozen other towns--was an English-language version of a little-known Mozart opera called Merry Masquerade (originally La Finta Giardiniera). Written when the composer was 18, it lampoons 18th century operatic oddities in their own terms: a nobleman thinks his wife is dead and plans to marry a pretty young thing who is actually in love with an untitled poet. Everybody else in the story is in love with somebody else, including the wife, who is really alive but disguised as a lady gardener in order to win back her count. Most everyone in the Goldovsky version gets his fondest wish.

This tomfoolery is touched up by a pretty pink & blue set, elaborate costumes, and a fresh young company that is trained within an inch of its last high C. Every gesture is rehearsed until it is the performer's second nature. Goldovsky even makes his singers practice with their backs to him so that they will be able to concentrate on their roles without having to keep their eyes trained on his baton. There are eleven singers on the tour, and all of them know more than one of the opera's seven roles, and switch around frequently. The result: a high-spirited romp that made listeners from Baltimore to Wichita forget that Mozart was a classical composer and that opera was supposed to be difficult.

Director Goldovsky has no hope of making great profits out of his tour, but he expects it to break even when it winds up in home-town Boston next week. "We could have 300 touring companies in America," he says. "If we can train American audiences to believe that opera is a very good show, then we can go ahead."

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