Cressida

Ken Howard | Opera Theatre of St. Louis

Ellie Dehn as Cressida with Elizabeth Batton as Evadne.

Baron Britten of Aldeburgh, who in 1945 was still simply Benjamin Britten, brought forth a masterwork that year. It was "Peter Grimes" and his thoroughly British, thoroughly universal opera, was received with deep admiration.

William Walton was next up. Walton was Britten's near contemporary, and the BBC commissioned him to write the second opera of this tradition revival in 1947. Together with his librettist, Christopher Hassell, and his patron-paramour, Alice Wimbourne, he settled on "Troilus and Cressida," using Chaucer's account of a Trojan War story.

Walton spent about seven years on the opera, one interruption caused by his being called upon to compose a monumental "Te Deum" sung at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

When Walton, by now Sir William, was done with "Troilus and Cressida" he was weary and was moved to paraphrase Emperor Joseph II's "too many notes" criticism of "The Marriage of Figaro." Walton's version: "Too many words."

The quantity of words has little to do with the quality of this opera. It is fair and not unkind to say the work is flawed. Opera Theatre's production, which opened Thursday evening, presents Acts I and II together before an interval. Even the patience of the devout was taxed, and many of us inured to the complexities and bafflements of opera plots could be found scratching our collective head. However, Act III, presented after the intermission, pulled everything pretty much together and made sense of what had been, in this observer's view anyway, pretty much of a muddle.

Through this funneling of action, intention, deception, betrayal, lust and slaughter came redemption of sorts, an energy source for the moral light bulb, which, as the opera progressed toward a finale began to glow, then to shine, with intensity.

The lesson of "Troilus and Cressida," with death and despair as dividends of tribal rivalries, petty jealousies and the rape that is war, is obvious. As former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright asked in an essay in the Washington Post, "The threshold question in any war is: What are we fighting for?" Often, that question is not considered until it is too late. Often, when an answer is given, it is so bizarre, so primitive and so flagrantly expressive of the banality of evil, it registers as incomprehensible.

In the conclusion to this meandering story, Troilus is dead, and Cressida is a prisoner of the Greeks. While all the issues are brought together in some sort of intellectual and dramatic congregation, the revelation, finally, is we humans behave consistently in ways that defy explanation. Rather than establishing order, rather than sorting things out fairly and humanely, we drive ourselves more hopelessly into chaos and tragedy. Once again, as happens regularly when confronted with serious works of art, we leave the gallery or the opera house and go out into the world asking "Why?"

One is justified quibbling with aspects of this production. Pandarus' shades for example, were distracting, as was his flamboyant queening. An attempt to introduce visual tension (or was it contemporary relevance?) by mixing up someone's idea of Grecian clothing of the 11th or 12th century B.C.E. with modern combat clothing was a losing battle. The introduction of an assault rifle to do in poor Troilus was jarring, not only in its report.

Nevertheless, even with taking these discordant elements and the schtick into account, the experience overall was satisfying and worthwhile. The duet of Troilus and Cressida at the end of Act II was thrillingly sung and emotionally gripping. Similarly, the grand ensemble of Act III was powerful, almost viscerally punishing. The spare architecture, reminiscent of the work of Peter Zumthor, was an entirely appropriate environment. A vertiginous ramp that dominates the stage in Act III is a potent metaphor of challenges to the elevation of the human spirit.

But why bring this opera to the Opera Theatre stage? Many others address the same aspects of our humanity, with, perhaps, greater fluency and clarity. The answer has to do with the quicksilvery business of continuity, with the maintenance of an emphasis established in the early days of the company, with the deliberate, scholarly examination and the frequent and emphatic celebration in performance of representative examples of the modern British operatic repertory.

 Strength - Athena, steroids and automatic weapons to the contrary -- is accomplished through nourishment, cultivation and exercise. Sustained growth is organic and incremental. That which obtains physiologically obtains in the opera house as well.

Opera Theatre of St. Louis is a quite good example of this proposition. At its conception, ambitions were substantial but never grand. Various seeds were planted and the seedlings withered for one reason or another, but one of them proved sturdy enough to survive. It was planted in the hothouse of Missouri Baptist College in 1975. "The Marriage of Figaro" was performed. Eve Queler conducted. The operation was altogether shaky. Nevertheless, the audience was enraptured, so much so that a group of opera lovers decided, in the words of King Edward VIII, "Something must be done."

And something indeed was done, something that added opera as a standard feature of the theatrical-musical landscape in St. Louis. If you've been on the culture-go-round in St. Louis for any length of time, you know the story, which has assumed the mantle of myth.

Cressida

Ken Howard | OTSL

It goes something like this: Deep-pocketed worthies who love opera get together and one of them brings up the name of Richard Gaddes, an Englishman who was imported from London to work at John Crosby's Santa Fe Opera. Gaddes is called and agrees to organize a small festival first season, which was suspended from an extremely flimsy financial shoestring. On May 22, 1976, it commences with a "Don Pasquale" everyone is crazy about. The operatic seedling, transplanted from Missouri Baptist to the Loretto Hilton, begins to show potential.

Many different fertilizers are employed that first season, and although Don Pasquale has everyone cheering, "Albert Herring" was the real star of '76. Its impact was the first clue that quite regularly Britannia would rule the raves at the intersection of Edgar Road and Big Bend Boulevard in Webster Groves.

We were smitten with that fresh-faced "Albert Herring," and not only we. The show attracted attention not only in St. Louis but beyond. Two years later, "Albert Herring" was in the repertory again so it could be filmed in a joint production of WNET in New York and the BBC. "Albert Herring" purchased Opera Theatre's ticket to international renown.

In the years between "Albert Herring" and "Troilus and Cressida" there has been a quite an astonishing reckoning here with the tradition of English opera, most importantly with works written and produced in the 20th century. The contribution of work to the warm patina worn by Opera Theatre is inestimable.

Britten's work has been featured with the greatest frequency, no doubt because of its towering artistry and metaphorical potency. Credit for that must be given to the late Opera Theatre artistic director, Colin Graham, who worked with Britten at the Maltings at Snape in Suffolk, and to Gaddes, who was - is - deeply appreciative of Britten's genius.

Graham, Gaddes and the current general director Charles MacKay brought, with heroic determination, a total of 11 of Britten's operas to stages and to churches in St. Louis, including Britten's most indelible achievements, "Billy Budd," "Peter Grimes" and "Gloriana" as well as his profoundly affecting church operas such as "Noyes Fludde" and "Curlew River."

Frederick Delius, a weaver of musical tapestries of luminous subtlety, was given an American second chance by Opera Theatre when it produced the American premiere of "Fennimore and Gerda" in the remarkable season of 1982. The company then took that show -- projectors, scrim, lock, stock and Frank Corsaro -- to the King's Theatre in Edinburgh for the Edinburgh International Festival in 1983.

Into the King's marched, among other luminaries, the redoubtable Earl of Harewood, a grandson of George V and first cousin of the Queen. Lord Harewood remains a towering figure in modern British musical life. Also in 1983, Delius was celebrated again in St. Louis with the world premiere of "Margot La Rouge," some performances of which were conducted by Delius' amanuensis, Eric Fenby.

Along with Britten and Delius, works of these composers of British nationality also have been performed by the company: Michael Berkeley; Jonathan Dove; John Gay; Alexander Goehr; Stephen Oliver; Henry Purcell; Sir Arthur Sullivan; and Judith Weir.

Certainly the fact that Gaddes and Graham were British contributed to this effulgence. The choices were based not on Union Jack waving but on knowledge, taste, a sense of adventure, experience, artistic authority and a conviction that the British musical modernism was of genuine and sometimes unrecognized consequence.

This conviction has been maintained over the three-plus decades Opera Theatre has been in action, and Thursday's "Troilus and Cressida," bears forward an estimable musical and dramatic tradition born in "that green and pleasant Land," which has been, to our good fortune, transported to our green and pleasant American heartland.

OPERA NEWS: Timothy O'Leary, heir presumptive to the general directorship of Opera Theatre of St. Louis is presumed heir no more. Thursday, Opera Theatre's board president Donna Wilkinson made a formal announcement of the board's decision to name O'Leary general director Oct. 1. At the same time, the present day Opera Theatre chief, Charles MacKay will take over at the Santa Fe Opera. He succeeds Richard Gaddes at the helm. Gaddes was founding general director of Opera Theatre of St. Louis.