Adamo: Little Woman. (Opera And Oratorio).

M. Lloyd, Tappan, DiDonato, Novacek, Gwe. Jones, Ka. Ciesinskh Shelton, Belcher, Yuan, D. Parker, Maddalena; Houston Grand Opera Orchestra, Summers. Texts. Ondine ODE 988-2D (Koch, dist.)

There is a great deal to admire about Little Women, which is enjoying some currency on regional opera stages after a successful Houston premiere. Composer/ librettist Mark Adamo's theatrical smarts are evident in the idiomatic, comfortable-sounding vocal writing, sensibly planting most of the dialogue in the singers' midrange; in musically characterful, judiciously proportioned scenes; and, particularly, in his adroit construction of the libretto to highlight the character of Jo, not only as a narrator but as the opera's principal dramatic fulcrum.

Adamo's score skillfully evokes the sense of the novel's time and place without resorting to facile pastiche, thus underlining the "period" material's basic timeless quality. The composer's conscious decision to juxtapose atonal narrative passages -- as he terms it, a "dodecaphonic recitativo secco" -- against a broad, lyrical tonality for the characters' emotional journeys, may provoke reservations. The twelve-tone passages are innocuous, propelling the action forward, often assisted by an airborne rhythmic buoyancy (as in the attic flashback in Act I). In his booklet note, Adamo suggests that he has synthesized tonal and nontonal idioms into a single style; to my ears, the nontonal pages never quite mesh with the arias' flights of aching, Bernsteinian lyricism.

Another difficulty, a sometimes intrusive orchestration, typical of many contemporary theater composers, is a symptom of a more general problem. Adamo's adept, forceful deployment of the orchestra sometimes submerges the voices -- most frustratingly in Act I, where loud punctuating chords repeatedly interrupt Aunt Cecilia's lines just as we begin to get their sense. (The Houston Grand Opera Orchestra, for this recording, included relatively few strings; the winds, with their brighter overtones, are a large component of the sonority.) The most convenient method of ensuring consistent audience comprehension is to use supertitles along with the staged production, even ...