WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- When composer Deborah Drattell first played excerpts of her opera "Nicholas and Alexandra" -- then a work in progress -- to Placido Domingo she was hoping (1) that the world's top operatic tenor would accept the finished work for performance by the Los Angeles Opera, of which he is also general director, and (2) that he would agree to sing the role of Russia's last czar, Nicholas II, which she was writing with him in mind.
Drattell got her first wish: On Sunday, "Nicholas and Alexandra" has its world premiere at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. As for the second, well, it didn't come out quite as the composer had expected.
Domingo was impressed with the opera, but the tenor wanted the role of Rasputin, the sinister, charismatic monk whose influence over Czar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra contributed to the royal couple's undoing and, eventually, to their deaths at the hands of Bolshevik revolutionaries in 1918.
"At first, I was very depressed," Drattell told United Press International in a telephone interview from Los Angeles this week. "It's like, The good news is he liked it, the bad news is he wants to play Rasputin." By time-honored operatic tradition, the villain's role goes to a dramatic baritone or, more often, a bass: The tenor is usually the hero.
Domingo tends not to give interviews so close to a major performance. But he was recently quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying, "I have never liked so much the figure of Nicholas in history. I find him weak. And I see Rasputin as an ageless character. And I like to concentrate now more on characters that do not have to be a young person." Placido Domingo is 63.
All of that was four years ago. Deborah Drattell eventually overcame her depression and went to back to work on the opera, reshaping it with Nicholas as a baritone role and Rasputin as a tenor, and expanding the monk's role with what she called "long Rasputin passages."
She was finished in time for "Nicholas and Alexandra" to be included in the L.A. Opera's 2003-2004 season.
The English libretto is by Nicholas von Hoffmann; the production is directed by Anne Bogart, and the conductor is Mistislav Rostropovich -- himself a Russian and by coincidence a collector of Romanov memorabilia. Lyric baritone Rodney Gilfry plays the last czar of all the Russias and soprano Nancy Gustafson is Alexandra. Domingo -- black clad and wearing a heavy gold pectoral cross -- from all accounts sings Rasputin with mesmerizing intensity.
Drattell, a 47-year-old mother of four, told UPI the tragic story of Nicholas and Alexandra first interested her as the possible subject for an opera years ago when she read Robert K. Massie's best-selling book of the same name.
Though Rasputin now looms larger in the opera than she had originally planned, he still dies in the second act of the three-act work, and the central theme remains the love story of the doomed royal couple, set against the background of the Russian revolution.
The story is told as a flashback in which Czarina Alexandra recalls her life as she awaits her executioners. The final curtain comes down as the assassins are arriving on the scene, although the actual execution is not seen in the opera.
"When she writes an opera she writes a complete orchestration right away," Domingo told the L.A. Times. "And it is very colorful, very richly orchestrated."
Drattell -- whose first full-length opera "Lillith" had its premiere in 2001 and is also the author of several shorter works -- said she wanted to make the music of her new composition "as dramatically compelling as possible. The techniques I used went from romantic to minimalist, but it all comes together like a big pot of soup."
What she didn't want, she said, was "to write imitation Russian composition, but I had to do that in the Russian Orthodox church music I wrote for the opera. Don't ask me how a Jewish woman from Queens gets to write Russian Orthodox church music."
The how was at least partly by taking a trip to St Petersburg last spring and spending hours in Russian Orthodox churches listening to the singing during the services, and soaking up the atmosphere. It was also, she recalled, an opportunity to visit some of the actual sites where the drama unfolded.
Working with Domingo on the score was "an inspiration and joy," she said, even though their few meetings had to be sandwiched between Domingo's proliferation of engagements. In addition to his position with the L.A. Opera, he is artistic director of the Washington Opera (here he will appear in Wagner's Die Walkure this season) and, of course, has singing and conducting commitments worldwide.
Last week, he took a break from rehearsals at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to make a "guest appearance" in the performance of the Johann Strauss Jr. operetta "Die Fledermaus," which opened the Washington Opera's season.
Then it was back to Los Angeles for the final preparations for "Nicholas and Alexandra." This is either the 119th or 120th opera in the Domingo repertoire. But who's counting?
