Austin.(A Streetcar Named Desire)

Many opera productions now offer eye candy as well as music to the ears, but in Austin Lyric Opera's recent staging of Andre Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire, one often had the feeling that the eight buff gym boys who moved menacingly and seductively around the stage were getting more attention than the vocal leads. (Their nominal jobs were to move props and furniture and to lend color to the abstract set.)

Even Teddy Tahu Rhodes, the young New Zealand baritone who sang Stanley Kowalski, was in superlative physical condition; his glistening torso, revealed at least three times when he pulled off his shirt, suggested that Rodney Gilfry (Stanley in the opera's world premiere in San Francisco in 1998) is not the only opera singer who might give the young Marlon Brando a run for his money. Rhodes, more feral than Gilfry, acted up a storm, although his voice had a covered quality.

Michael Yeargan's sets and Brad Dalton's stage direction also assumed a starring role in the production. A long diagonal corridor extended from the rear of the stage, bordered on both sides by ten doors through which players entered and exited. From these doors and also from the back of the set, lighting designer David Nancarrow achieved different effects, with lights that shone menacingly, glaringly or subtly, depending on the desired mood. Psychological expressionism was the name of the game. In a printed statement, Dalton said he wanted to "delve deep inside the fractured world of Blanche's mind." For this reason, the opera opens on a scene that mingles the Kowalski apartment, its French Quarter neighborhood and the mental hospital to which Blanche is consigned at the end. This concept was effective, as was the minimalist scenery and furniture, especially if one didn't think too hard about it. ...