Pasatieri: the Seagull. (Opera and Oratorio).(Sound Recording Review)

[] Shoremount, Gough, Behan; Ayers, Worth, Alvarez de Toledo; Manhattan School of Music Opera Orchestra, chorus, Gilbert. Texts. Troy 579-580

Thomas Pasatieri has written seventeen operas in a frankly emotional, lyrical vernacular, rich in passion and melody, though prominent figures in the musical establishment used to frown on such things. Still, he persisted, pleasing audiences and winning prestigious commissions in the process. For Houston Grand Opera's first world premiere, Pasatieri chose as source material Chekhov's The Seagull The play, revered for its subtlety, seems a poor choice for a composer of Pasatieri's post-Puccinian expansiveness, and indeed it's a shotgun marriage of story and music. Conversations and plot points that hold myriad mysteries in Chekhov's understatement are unsurprising or downright dull when spelled out in Pasatieri's outbursts and Kenward Elmslie's streamlined libretto. Though one admires the composer's craftsmanship at every turn, The Seagull is yet another literary-adaptation opera that would work better if all the names were changed to disguise the source. Given its premiere in 1974 (when the composer was not yet thirty), Seagull was well received but quickly forgotten. Pasatieri eventually went to Hollywood, where he is a respected orchestrator of film scores (The Little Mermaid, American Beauty, The Shawshank Redemption, etc.). However, returning to Seagull (and revising it) for ...