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Wednesday, May 10, 2000
Premiere of an 'opera musical' gives Dorian Gray a new spin By Patricia Goodson For Isaac Steiner, performing in the city where Mozart was loved best is a dream come true. The revelation came when the Israeli composer was walking past the Estates Theater (Stavovske divadlo), where Mozart's Don Giovanni premiered 213 ago. "Exactly in front of the stairs there is a poster for Dorian Gray, and I said to myself, 'Isaac, could you imagine that here, so many years ago, Mozart, whom you love so much, was walking on those stairs? Could you believe that so many years afterward, your name would be in front of those stairs?'" Steiner became infatuated with Mozart at an early age. This passion, coupled with his own remarkable talent, led Steiner to a life in music. And now the affair will reach its climax with the world premiere of his opera-musical Dorian Gray at the Statni opera on Sunday, May 14. It was 15 years ago that Steiner, now 47, first read Oscar Wilde's novel A Picture of Dorian Gray. Already a successful pianist and composer, Steiner immediately felt compelled to create a work based on it. But it wasn't until a few years ago that he put aside all else and devoted himself entirely to the writing of the music -- and, most unusually, the libretto as well. Although a musician by trade, Steiner finds the moral and ethical dimension of the story equally compelling. "What is right, and what is wrong?" muses one of his characters. "How do you come to your good if there is no bad?" Steiner's version stays with the book at the beginning, with Dorian Gray having his portrait painted and fretting about getting old and losing his beauty. Dorian yearns to have the portrait age and carry the weight of his wrongdoings, instead of himself. On cue, the diabolical Lord Henry appears in order to grant Dorian's wish. It's a function Lord Henry serves repeatedly in the musical, and the havoc he wreaks as a result is one of the musical's major themes. "No one guarantees that your wish will come true," Steiner says. "But if you want to fulfill your wish, you have to be ready to pay the price in advance." Steiner updates the novel's Victorian sense of morality and adds a bit of wisdom from the ancient Greeks. In Wilde's original, narcissism and sins of the flesh lead to Dorian's downfall. Steiner's adaptation attacks the psychological self-indulgence endemic now in the New Age obsession with personal happiness. The modern Dorian is condemned to unending loneliness by his own self-absorption. The wages of sin are not death but rather despair and, in the end, madness. From Mozart to Miller While Dorian Gray is billed as an "opera musical," most people would take is as a musical pure and simple -- were it not for the 65-piece orchestra. Steiner's exploration of the fine line between the genres is intriguing and fruitful. Operetta, the forerunner of the musical, used to be distinguished by a certain lightness of tone. However, Dorian Gray is anything but lightweight. Chiefly, what places it firmly in the "musical" camp is the unabashedly popular and tuneful style -- or, rather, styles of the music. Steiner has a remarkable talent for musical mimicry, and puts it to good use in Dorian. His beloved Mozart, for example, makes several musical cameo appearances. You'll also hear passages that sound uncannily like Glenn Miller, snippets of mock Rimsky-Korsakov, an Elizabethan lute song, a little Gilbert and Sullivan, and even a hip-hop number. It could easily have been a disaster. But the show maintains a clarity of texture and structure that could only be termed, well, Mozartian. You may wonder where Steiner the composer can be found in all of this. The answer is that he's exactly where he wants to be -- exercising a unique array of talents in the service of ideas close to his heart. Dorian Gray abounds with soaring melodies and lively dance numbers, as well as some stellar acting by the main players. It has all the ingredients of a hit -- though at three-and-a-half hours, it does make a long evening. The show is all in English, and miked so that most of the dialogue is actually intelligible. Indeed, every aspect of the production -- down to the inventive costumes and set designs -- betrays a consummate attention to detail. This opportunity to experience an evening that's entirely new, daringly original and undeniably first-rate should not be missed by any music lover. TRAVEL
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