FROM AROUND THE WORLD: PALERMO.(Review)

The Teatro Massimo, one of Italy's most opulent theaters, was inaugurated during the heyday of the Sicilian capital in 1897 and closed in 1974 for renovation. How the closure period extended for twenty-three years is a story in itself, but in the interim the company decamped to a less sumptuous nineteenth-century edifice, the Politeama Garibaldi, to continue its operations. With the full backing of the city's mayor, Leoluca Orlando, the Massimo's splendid auditorium once again resounded to the strains of music in 1997. At time of this writing, it is halfway through its third full season, offering a program that ranges from Lulu to I Masnadieri, from Tosca to Il Trionfo dell'Onore (by local boy Alessandro Scarlatti). But perhaps the most unusual item on the bill, for an Italian opera house, is Kurt Weill's musical, Lady in the Dark (seen April 21).

The show was a Broadway hit in 1941 and, with a total run of 467 performances, one of the greatest commercial successes of Weill's American career. His collaborators were playwright Moss Hart and lyricist Ira Gershwin. They produced a sophisticated piece, its plot centering on Liza Elliott, a magazine editor who is suffering from a midlife crisis and decides to undergo psychoanalysis. This Freudian premise allowed Liza's dreams to figure prominently in the scenario, and each of the four (the Glamour, Wedding, Circus and Childhood Dreams) became what Weill referred to as "mini-operas," the main repositories of music in the show.

Unfortunately, what might have been a worthwhile revival foundered on a number of dubious decisions. One was to perform Lady in the Dark in English, with a largely Italian cast and ...