For the majority of us who recognize the name Christopher Sly, he was
a drunken tinker, the subject of an apparently harmless prank in the
introduction to Shakespeare's *Taming of the Shrew*.  While in a drunken
stupor, he's taken to a rich man's castle, cleaned up, put in fancy
clothes, and given to believe that he is actually the lord of the manor,
just awakened from a 15-year coma, w/ apparently no recollection of his
pre-coma life, and for whose amusement a group of strolling players perform
the play on which *Kiss Me Kate* was based.  That's the last we see or hear
of Sly.  There is no return to the castle at the end of *Taming*.

The idea of such a prank was not original w/ Shakespeare.  It occurs in the
*Thousand and One Nights* and in various later works, including Boccaccio,
Cervantes, and Calderon de la Barca.  A more recent occurrence occurs in
a movie from the late 50s or early 60s, the title of which escapes me, in
which the Germans drug an American known to possess the D-Day secrets and
spirit him off to a compound specially constructed to look like an American
base, five years in the future after the war, populated by Germans speaking
unaccented American English, who try to convince the American that he has
just awakened from a several years' coma, and that the Allies have won the
war in the mean time.  They hope of course that he will now in passing
disclose the coveted D-Day plans.

None of this is Wolf-Ferrari's opera *Sly* which I attended Wednesday
night (3/24/99) at the Kennedy Center.  It was conducted by Heinz Fricke
(who, as I mentioned a few months back, once sang Sly pseudonymously as
Heinz Helfer as a favor to a fellow conductor when the intended Sly singer
became unavailable) w/ Jose Carreras singing the title role, Gregory
Yurisich as the Earl of Westmoreland, Elisabete Matos as Dolly, William
Parcher as John Plake, and Elizabeth Bishop as the Hostess of the Falcon
Inn.

In the opera, Sly is, depending upon your point of view, a scoundrel,
drunkard, or misfit, or a poet, artist, or genius.  On discovering the
hoax of which he had been the subject, he kills himself.  That's the story.
Would that I could say it is fleshed out in the opera w/ inspiring music
and memorable singing.  Alas, I can't.  And not for want of trying.  After
all, this was Carreras, one of the holy trinity (even if he was "the other
one" whose name Jerry Seinfeld and Elaine couldn't remember along w/
Pavarotti and Domingo).  He sang wonderfully, blended w/ the orchestra
w/out being drowned out by it or drowning it out, and sang w/ expression.
But he had nothing to sing!  It's hard to believe that the man who wrote
the overture to *The Secret of Susanna* could produce such (so far as
I was concerned) consistently uninspired music.

As has often been the case this opera season, I found the staging and
settings more impressive than the music.

Entering the opera house at the start of the evening, we saw no curtain,
just a screen that turned out to be a scrim containing parallel Spanish
and English verses from Calderon de la Barca's *La Vida es Sueno*.  As the
opera starts, the scrim disappears and we are in a tavern where the rowdy
revelers await Sly somewhat in the way the students in Luther's wine cellar
await Hoffmann in Offenbach's opera.  As Hoffmann is prevailed upon to sing
the legend of Kleinzach, Sly is urged to sing the "Bear Song" about a caged
bear who falls in love w/ cat which he devours when he realizes he can't
awaken requitement.  There's magnificent handling of crowds in the tavern
and Sly's shadow is ominously like the silhouette of a bear as he sings and
acts out his song.  (If only the song had just a fraction of the zest of
Offenbach's "Kleinzach"!)

There's a bit of dramatic irony in the beginning of the second act.  When
Sly, already transported to the Earl of Westmoreland's castle while he was
asleep, is waking up, the Earl, and his retainers, ludicrously costumed as
household help, sigh their regrets at the sorrow to which Sly must needs
be awaking.  We who know the story realize the anguish that is in fact in
store for him.  The characters, however, are pretending they think the
sleeping person will again awaken to dementia, which they will have Sly
believe had been the case before he woke up this time apparently fully
recovered and back to his old self as the earl and master of the household.
Lots of well choreographed crowd scenes and clever scene changes ensue
again and Sly falls in love w/ Dolly, the Earl's mistress, having been led
to believe that she's his long suffering, faithful wife.  At this point,
the actual earl shatters the illusion, has Sly caged and carted off to the
castle's cellar.  And Sly's shadow again looks like the silhouette of a
caged bear.

Which brings us to the last act.  Sly is stretched out in the cellar.
A servant returns his clothes, some money for his trouble, a job offer
from the earl as jester or poet, which he is free to reject, and in the
alternative he is free to go.  Instead, Sly sings about his pointless life,
is directed by a mute phantom who dances beautifully, to some wine bottles,
which he breaks, and w/ the glass pieces of which he cuts his wrists.
Dolly than appears in the cellar, assures him that her affection for him
had not been feigned, kisses him, and he dies.

The stage curtain falls for the first time.  Everybody comes out for their
curtain calls.  Carreras gets a standing ovation.  And the 1998-1999
Washington Opera Season at the Kennedy Center is over.

Walter Meyer