Playtime
The Broken Jug and The Dwarf at the LA Opera
By Katharine and Robert Morsberger
Opera is indeed theater, yet in all our years of reviewing plays and attending opera, we have never before been moved to write a review of an opera. But after seeing the LA Opera’s current Recovered Voices program, The Broken Jug and The Dwarf, we found it such a moving evening that we wanted to let our readers know about the production. Recovered Voices is a series of programs devoted to works by Jewish composers who were silenced by the Nazis and most of whom perished at Auschwitz.
Such was the fate of Viktor Ullmann, who wrote The Broken Jug, a light satiric comedy about a woman’s quest to find who has broken her cherished antique jug, written while Ullman was in Terezin , an “elite” camp that show-placed artistic prisoners whose final end was Auschwitz. Well staged in 18th-century Holland, complete with windmills in the background, and an adept ensemble cast, outstanding among whom are James Johnson as Adam, the village judge and Melody Moore as Eve, whom he tried to seduce. This satiric quest for justice (both the judge and the government inspector are corrupt) is an effective comic curtain-raiser (about 45 minutes) to the evening’s main event. The music suits the subject.
Alexander Zemlinsky’s The Dwarf drew applause as the curtain opened on Ralph Funicello’s set, a magnificent hall-like room with large mirrored windows on either side, serving as doors. Based on Oscar Wilde’s fairy tale, The Birthday of the Infanta, it dramatizes the relationship between the Infanta and a Dwarf given her by the Sultan for her 18th birthday. The Dwarf is a grotesque, misshapen figure, who has never seen himself in a mirror, and is thus totally unaware of his deformity. Roderick Dixon‘s performance in the title role is outstanding. An African-American with a tenor voice of great range and subtlety, he is also a brilliant actor, making the Dwarf so convincing that one is somewhat taken aback by the smiling, erect, and normal actor who takes the curtain call. As characterized here, the Dwarf is not only unaware of his ugliness; he is gifted with a beautiful singing voice and the ability to write and perform song, which carries over into very poetic speech. Thinking he is a gallant hero, who brings joy rather than mocking laughter, he falls ecstatically in love with the angelic-looking Infanta. Zemlinsky’s score, lushly romantic and somewhat reminiscent of Richard Strauss, gives Dixon full scope for his remarkable vocal and dramatic talents.
Also outstanding is Mary Dunleavy as the spoiled Infanta, who toys with the Dwarf, making him believe that she responds to his love, and giving him a white rose, but when he presses her for a firm declaration of love, she tells him she cannot love anyone who is not beautiful and that he is not a man but a beast. When he finally sees himself in a mirror, he screams with horror. The Infanta’s response to the Dwarf’s final collapse is “My toy is broken.” The only sympathetic person in the whole court is Ghita (Susan B.Anthony), one of the Infanta’s maids, who is kind to the Dwarf and eventually tries unsuccessfully to prepare him for his inevitable disillusionment.
Conductor James Conlon and director Darko Tresnjak do a splendid job, and Peggy Hickey recreates the gorgeously elaborate costumes of Velasquez’ 17th-century painting, which gave Wilde his inspiration.
But Dixon’s Dwarf is the main reason to make the effort to catch the final performance this Saturday, March 8, at 7:30 p.m. Whether you care for opera—or even for music—it is magical theater.
LA Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Tickets (213) 972-8001 or visit their website at www.laopera.com.
