Heavenly Bore

By Annalyn Swan

Penderecki'sopera in limbo

In this secular age, God is not very popular among composers. One notable exception is Krzysztof Penderecki, 45, a Polish Roman Catholic. He has written a St. Luke's Passion (1966), Dies Irae, an oratorio for the victims at Auschwitz (1967) and a Magnificat (1974). For the past four years, Penderecki (pronounced Pen-de-ret-ski) has labored on a huge, lofty project: recasting Milton's epic poem, Paradise Lost, into an opera. But last week, in its world premiere at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Penderecki's huge effort failed to justify the ways of God to man.

Paradise Lost was not just any new opera; it came as highly touted as a Cecil B. DeMille spectacular. The libretto was written by Playwright Christopher Fry (The Lady's Not for Burning). Chicago Lyric spent well over half a million dollars on the production, a near record. The musical forces were mighty: a Wagnerian orchestra of 96, a chorus of 100. The preparation was elaborate. Choral rehearsals began in April; the orchestra practiced an unprecedented 110 hours.

The prologue promised opera on a grand scale. An eerie rumble of double basses and tympani built in the pit. Then a beam of light stabbed down onto the blackened stage, illuminating the figure of the blind poet Milton (Arnold Moss). "Hail, holy light!" he intoned. The choir of black-robed, monklike figures, clustered on either side of the stage in two four-tiered towers, burst forth in a great invocation: "What in us is dark/ Illumine..."

That is what the Chicago production failed to do. Adam and Eve, sung by Baritone William Stone and Soprano Ellen Shade, and Satan, Bass-Baritone Peter Van Ginkel, stumbled about in semidarkness. There seemed to be a ban on imaginative staging. Only twelve days before the premiere, the director, Virginio Puecher, resigned under pressure. "He wanted to do too much movement," said Penderecki. "I think that the drama should be in the music."

Milton's mighty imagery--the fiery lake of hell, the bridge over chaos, the sense of a vast cosmos--was virtually ignored. Hell was a murky blue-black pit. A metallic-looking dome, which resembled a spaceship, stood for Eden's glories.

The staging was ponderous. Although God's angels and hell's legions wore tunics and helmets of war, the opera appeared to take place during a truce. The characters seemed symbolic figures in a morality play, and majesty and miracles were in short supply. A stunning exception was John Butler's choreography of the dances depicting the creation and union of Adam and Eve. The awakening of Adam (danced by Dennis Wayne), in which he slowly uncurled from a womblike position, was a high point in the opera.

In contrast to the pallid staging, the music had an almost primitive power: a dark bass roar that evoked feelings of uneasy anticipation, discordant blasts to herald hell. Unlike Penderecki's earlier compositions, which were built of endless tone clusters, Paradise Lost was much more varied in style. There were chromatic progressions and almost florid orchestration. Still, the ominous feeling was unrelieved and ultimately boring. The voices might have broken the monotony. The singing was almost uniformly good, particularly William Stone's sonorous Adam and the impeccably schooled chorus, which deli vered everything from whispers to wails. Too often, however, the voices were drowned in the heavy orchestration. Paradise Lost settled uncomfortably into musical limbo, neither opera nor oratorio.

The long-range future of Paradise Lost appears cloudy, but the short term is assured. Milan's La Scala, which planned the opera with Chicago, will stage the same production on Jan. 23. Stuttgart and Duesseldorf will follow. Penderecki's own future is uncertain. After years of unconventional composing, he has entered a tonal, neoromantic period. But his subject matter will not change. In Poland, where he directs Cracow's State Higher Music School, one of his friends was a Cardinal Wojtyla. Penderecki's next work will be a Te Deum dedicated to his friend, Pope John Paul II. -- Annalyn Swan

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