CORPUS EVITA

 

FRANZETTI Corpus Evita - José Luis Moscovich, cond; Maryam Mahvi (Eva Perón); Eileen Morris (Isabel Perón); John Minagro (Juan Perón); Donna Bruno (Corpus Evita); John Swenson (Ministro); Carl King (Doctor); San Francisco Camerata & Chorus - AMAPOLA AR 9807 (74:59)

At an hour and a quarter, it's an awkward length for an opera house, unless it's going to substitute for half of a Cav & Pag bill, but Carlos Franzetti's Corpus Evita otherwise has what it takes to please an audience. The magical realism of José Luis Moscovich's libretto keeps the store from devolving into exchanges between Argentine policy wonks, and Franzetti's rich post-Puccini score holds many atractive moments, with rational use of the human voice and lush orchestration.

The Prologue, set in 1952, shows us Evita Perón, at age 32 the dying wife of Argentine leader Juan Perón, making her farewell address to the people, in the process of becoming a mythic figure that will be used and abused at every level of society for the next generation. In the following scene, it's 1974; Juan Perón has died, leaving the presidency to his next wife, the naive Isabel. As Evita's embalmed body is being prepared for public display, the doctor in charge grouses that the Evita myth has paralyzed his country for 20 years. Part of it comes out during an exchange with Corpus Evita, the myth incarnate (a role performed by a different singer from that portraying Evita herself).

The Ministro, a member of a cabal that's really running the contry, is eager to display the corpse as part of an effort to portray Isabel as a new Evita. Isabel, though, has grave reservations about the way the right-wing Peronistas have been violently supressing the socialist youth movement. Still, she is too politically weak to oppose them. Later, as the country falls into chaos, the Ministro holds a séance in which he conjures up the ghosts of Perón and Evita as they appeared at a reception in 1950. Isabel asks Perón for guidance; his remarks are ambiguoug, but he warns her against the Ministro and his gang. At this, the Ministro interrupts and declares that he will henceforth be the controlling oracle through whom Perón and Evita will speak. Corpus Evita crashes the party and challenges him, but he ends the séance and forces Isabel to comply with his wishes.

The second act moves to 1990 and finds Isabel in retirement, long after she was ousted by a military coup that brought order to Argentina yet caused some 30,000 people to "disappear." Isabel is now a nobody, pondering the meaning of these events. The souls of the desaparecidos appear to her, demanding justice, and then apparitions of Perón and the Ministro remind her that she was incapable of fulfilling anyone's expectations. Isabel owns up to her role in the national tragedy, begs forgiveness, and fades into historical oblivion. In the Epologue, the desaparecidos declare that Isabel's pain mirrors the grief of all Argentina. Evita and her followers appear and proclaim that the Evita myth lives on, and is a beacon of hope for future generations, however they decide to appropriate the myth to their own purposes.

There's absolutely nothing Latin American about Franzetti's music for this story; instead, the composer adopts a lush, dreamy style, voluptuously scored, that has much to do with certain currents in the early 20th century without every sounding too imitative or derivative. Evita's opening aria, for example, is quite modal, and might fit well into Szymanowski's King Roger. Isabel's first aria begins like a simple antique air, a Renaissance or folk song; it then becomes more involved, but returns to the simple manner as Isabel's first scene with the Ministro begins, while woodwinds weave delicately through the music, as in the more subtle sections of Respighi's Botticelli Pictures or Church Windows. There's a good bit of music that sounds like Firebird-era Stravinsky, and Stravinsly's later, ceremonial-processional style of choral writing seems to be an influence on the final scene, which simultaneously evokes a Bach chorale, complete with oboe solo. The scene of Isabel's retirement and hallucinations is less melodic; it features more meandering vocal lines, and relies more on color and effects from the orchestra. So if you're hoping for a tango opera, stick with Piazzolla's María de Buenos Aires; Franzetti offers something more international, as befits Argentina's cosmopolitan culture.

Librettist Moscovich conducts an assured, vibrant performance; a few wobbly voices stand out in the chorus, but this is not a great liability. As for the soloists, Maryam Mahvi's Eva Perón grows a little hard-sounding at her highes and loudest, but otherwise acquits herself admirably, as do Eileen Morris as Isabel, Donna Bruno as the scolding Corpus Evita, John Minagro as Juan Perón, Carl King as the doctor, and, aside from a certain reediness, John Swenson as the Ministro. The recording audio, set down at Skywalker Sound in Calfornia, is quite dry, but well balanced.

Corpus Evita is a rewarding work on a contemporary subject that never seems as opportunistic as works about, say, assasinated San Francisco politicians or Marilyn Monroe. What's missing is a connection with individual victims; perhaps some day Franzetti and Moscovich could produce another 75 minutes about an ordinary Argentine family, and weave that into the present work, rather as Leonard Bernstein developed A Quiet Place our of Trouble in Tahiti. Meanwhile, Corpus Evita is certainly a strong enough work to reach and hold a wide classical-music audience.