'Little Women' enchanting as an opera

NEW YORK, April 4 (UPI) -- Mark Adamo's musical version of "Little Women" is proving to be one of the most popular contemporary operas, a work of emotional power that transcends Louisa May Alcott's beloved but structurally weak Civil War novel.

Since it was given its world premiere by the Houston Grand Opera in 2000, the opera suitable for audiences of all ages has received 20 productions by regional opera companies and has been recorded on the Ondine label and televised nationally by the Public Broadcasting Service.

It is having its New York debut at the Lincoln Center with performances by the New York City Opera running through next Saturday.

Adamo, 41, is in his second season as NYCO's composer-in-residence and is working on an operatic version of Aristophanes's war comedy, "Lysistrata," for performances by the New York company, Houston Grand Opera, and Opera Pacific in Orange County, Calif. He is the first young composer of opera to grab the public's attention since Tobias Picker launched his widely performed "Emmeline" a few seasons ago and Carlisle Floyd was winning national acclaim a generation ago.

When the idea of making an opera based on "Little Women" was first proposed to Adamo seven years ago, he thought it impossible because the novel is made up of a series of episodes that lack dramatic conflict, a flaw that is evident in Hollywood's three film versions, including the critically acclaimed 1994 production starring Winona Ryder.

On reflection, however, Adamo came up with the idea of focusing on one aspect of the character of Jo March, actually the novel's author thinly disguised as the narrator. It is her difficulty in coming to grips with change in her life, especially in her relationships with her sisters –- Beth, who dies, and Amy and Meg who marry and leave home.

With the help of his friend, composer Floyd, Adamo received an offer of a workshop production by the Houston Opera Studio if he completed the opera. He accepted, and "Little Women" was ready for its first staging in Houston in 1998. The rest, as they say, is history.

Writing a libretto and the musical score took Adamo seven months, fairly rapid as opera composition goes. The libretto, a distillation of the novel, provides the seamless narrative that is missing in the book, and the sophisticated score is a deft blending of "modern" 12-tone techniques and old-fashioned lyricism that breaks out occasionally in unabashed aria, a rarity in contemporary opera.

Adamo provides Jo and her sisters with several lovely arias and saves the best for Jo's hesitant suitor, Professor Friedrich Bhaer, in the form of an English translation of a poem in German by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that is as near a proposal as Bhaer can manage. This constitutes one of the opera's most moving moments, topped only by Jo's concluding aria in which she muses that change is inevitable and even preferable to stasis.

Jennifer Dudley, a spirited young mezzo-soprano of considerable vocal distinction, is beguiling in the role of Jo, a stubborn young heroine who can be both delightful and harmfully selfish in her effort to cling to the innocent happiness she has known in the warm family circle of her adolescence. She is especially fine in her depiction of Jo, the successful young author, responding to the larger world of New York and opening up to Bhaer.

The rest of the cast performs at the same high level.

Tenor Chad Shelton makes a charming Laurie, the rich boy next door to the Marches, in his NYCO debut, and baritone Charles Robert Stephens gives a touchingly sympathetic performance as Bhaer. Caroline Worra, Julianne Borg and Jennifer Rivera bring individual qualities to the roles of Amy, Beth and Meg, respectively, and Gwendolyn Jones and Jake Gardner are impressive as their loving parents. Daniel Belcher, Laurie's tutor who marries Amy, is given a major role and makes the most of it, as does Emily Golden as the disapproving Aunt March.

Rhoda Levine's resourceful direction, especially in a scene where the plot is advanced by individual characters reading newsy letters from one another, is one of the production's major strengths. George Manahan is giving a masterful reading of the score in his conducting of the orchestra and an offstage female chorus.

Set designer Peter Harrison has created a garret-like space suggesting the attic of the March homestead, within which scenes can be moved swiftly and with fluidity with the help of magical lighting provided by Amy Appleyard. Paul Tazewell's period costumes catch the simple elegance of styles prevalent in the mid-1800s, an era caught like a fly in amber by Adamo's wonderful opera.