[From the Aug. 6 www.sfcv.org]

SANTA CRUZ - For 40 years, the small, gutsy and unique Cabrillo Festival
has presented contemporary American classical music.  With that kind of
record, music director Marin Alsop may be "excused" for programming an
opening weekend of accessible, less-than-pioneering music.

Later this week, the Kronos Quartet will continue in the same vein with
Osvaldo Golijov and an all-Latin program; the closing concert at Mission
San Juan Bautista will feature Daugherty, Musgrave and Corigliano.

The main opening events - Mark Adamo's opera, "Little Women" and an
all-Christopher Rouse concert - were pleasant, easy on the ear, enjoyable,
providing a bit of guilty pleasure in listening to well-written,
unchallenging music.

Most importantly and memorably, there was consistently brilliant
performance by the Festival Orchestra.  Under Alsop's baton, these
musicians, thrown together only for a couple of weeks each year, have
become an ensemble that would make any opera house or concert hall proud.

A Cabrillo veteran may recall semi-nostalgically the days of Gerhard
Samuel, Carlos Chavez and Dennis Russell Davies, the many adventurous (if
often unsuccessful) expeditions in the direction of the future, the weird
and wacky days of the very young and the very old (Nicolas Slonimsky, in
his 90s, playing the piano with an orange, in Aptos, yes, he did).

Still, until recent years, and especially this weekend, Cabrillo has never
had anything like this large number of virtuoso instrumentalists playing
together so wonderfully well.

The came from all over the world:  concertmaster Yumi Hwang Williams from
Denver, assistant concertmaster Melissa Forshaw from Scotland, principal
violist Leslie Van Becker from Michigan, principal cellist Lee Duckles
from British Columbia, principal flautist Shery Henze from New York, the
especially amazing principal oboist Karen Wagner from Oregon, the flawless,
thrilling horn and trumpet players from Colorado, Luisiana, Florida and
many, of course, from Northern California.

Along with mezzo Cherry Duke, singing the principal role in Adamo's work,
it was the orchestra that made the afternoon event memorable.  Then, at
night, Alsop unleashed the band in the very loud, joyful noise of Rouse's
works, described by the personable composer himself as "Boston Pops goes
to hell."

Your heart really must go out to contemporary opera composers, caught
between conflicting demands for the new and unusual (which then turns
out to be something done 60-70 years ago) and for the tried and true
of something "you can whistle." For every "what a noise!" protest,
there is somebody in the audience at the other extreme who leaves in
the intermission because "my diabetes is acting up." The sad reality is
that you can't attract an audience if you hang out on the limb too far,
but even when you're as "sweet," melodic and accessible as "Little Women,"
the 800-seat Civic Auditorium is only half full...  or empty.  (Reportedly,
opening night, on Friday, had better attendance.)

Adamo, 40, is a major promise on the opera scene.  His libretto from
the Louisa May Alcott novel is excellent.  The chorus opening and closing
the work has perhaps Adamo's most remarkable music, but the text was
unintelligible both times as Peter Kazaras directed the singers to perform
upstage with their backs turned to the audience.  The delivery of the text,
so important for this opera, was good to excellent for the rest of the
performance, depending on the singer.

Duke, whose character dominates every scene, is a singer who communicates
both the music and the text impeccably.  In this former sports stadium cut
in half, even with electronic "enhancement," it takes "heroic diction" to
do that and Duke surely has the helden-delivery.

The three sisters - sung well by Quinn Patrick (Meg), Natalie Taormina
(Beth) and especially Cara Johnson (Amy) - also enabled the audience to
follow the affecting story of the March family.  Among the men, tenor
Wesley Roger (Laurie) sang and acted most impressively, although audibly
tiring toward the end; and John Packard (the original "Dead Man" of Jake
Heggie's opera) did well with the role of John Brook, a fine baritone not
projected to its full advantage.

Adamo's music is both rewarding and frustrating.  He writes more
striking and enjoyable phrases than just about anybody in opera today,
but they are brief and unconnected.  His melodic and harmonic inventions
are fragmentary, not sustained, but still memorable.  Much to his credit,
Adamo doesn't sound like anybody else, there are only resonances in his
music as varied as Debussy-Ravel colors and Sondheim recitative cadences.
I'd hope a masterpiece may yet emerge from where "Little Women" came from.

Rouse is a force of (good) nature.  His music is loud, brassy (and
beyond percussive, with five musicians banging away on everything under
the sun, in the 1985 "Phantasmata" and the 1986 "Phaethon"), consistently
interesting and engaging, but frequently short on substance, running in
place.

Rouse did better with the 1997 "Kabir Padavali," a song cycle to text
by a 14th century Indian poet.  With some shimmering passages, worthy of
Richard Strauss, and a fine vocal line, there is music here beyond the "big
sound." The singer was Valdine Anderson, introduced by Rouse as the soprano
said by (the polite and generous) Dawn Upshaw to sing the work "better than
I did" (Upshaw introduced the work originally).  A surprising and dubious
statement in light of the skillful but lackluster performance Sunday night.

When Rouse hits his stride, he presents a glimpse at one of the best
contemporary American composers.  Case in point:  the conclusion of the
1995 "Envoi," a "Death and Configuration" work written when his mother
passed away.  Rouse first portrays the stopping of the heart in his own
way (not as an imitation of the Mahler Ninth) and then follows up with
a superb extended passage that grabs the listener and stays with him
long after the concert, especially when played with as much passion
and commitment as the Festival Orchestra did.  Instead of transcendence,
"Envoi" presents a resigned, accepting lament, a gentle meandering night
music.  The power and beauty of this work would have been the perfect
finale to the evening, instead of yet another mighty contest of speed
and volume, fun as that was.

Janos Gereben/SF
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