From around the world: St. Louis.(North America)(Opera Theatre of Saint Louis)(Opera Review)

Cast as the lovelorn "Older Woman" in Opera Theatre of Saint Louis's American premiere production of Jonathan Dove's Flight (seen June 19), Myrna Paris bustled into the opera's airport-lounge setting in a screaming-green Chanel suit and firmly crimped curls, wielding her sunglasses and shiny purse like a sword and buckler, and knocked out belly laughs for the next two hours and forty-five minutes, whether snarling in pidgin French ("Fromage! Cafe! Veuve Cliquot! Jacques Chirac! Jacques Chirac!"), reminiscing about her ex-husband ("Bastard! Earwig! Moron! Rotten sod!"), thirstily ordering a gin ("Just the thing!"), wriggling into a pair of sandals or helping to stuff a dead body into a trunk. Paris took full advantage of the opportunities provided by April de Angelis's libretto, the story of a group of travelers and airline employees stranded in an unspecified airport by electrical storms. Just as vivid--in a far less flashy role--was mezzo MaW Ann McCormick, cast as the Minsk Woman, the pregnant wife of a diplomat, whose snaring monologue in Act II ("I bought this suitcase in New York") was the most effective moment in Dove's John Adamseque score. Countertenor David Walker took on the central role of the mysterious Refugee in his OTSI, debut; he delivered the opera's eleven o'clock spot, a revelatory aria about the Refugee's dead brother, with great technical skill, but his fey, mannered acting took some of the heart out of the opera's final moments. All of the remaining ensemble handled their assignments with flair, expertly deployed by OTSL artistic director Colin Graham in the vivid milieu devised by Jerome Sirlin, wittily costumed by Jane Greenwood and paced with consideration by William Lumpkin in what was clearly this year's crowd-pleaser.

The season's repertory rarity was French in flavor but, like all of OTSL's presentations, sung in English. The quasi-Oriental splendors of Massenet's Thais were spun around the slim, pretty courtesan of Mary Dunleavy, whose glittering soprano, with its diamond hard top notes and sunny mid-range, proved ideal for Massener's professional glamour girl. Classy and chic in the Alexandrian milieu, stalking her maddened monk with the lithe, heartless grace of a cobra, Dunleavy managed Thai's's tumble into sainthood with consummate skill, rising to an almost arrogant interrogation of the mirror (and a pearly B-flat) in her big monologue, ending with a chaste, economically shaped death scene. Canadian baritone James Westman was the Athanael, virile and firm of voice, attractively burly in mien, a mite cautious in delivery; Gerard Powcrs was an apple-cheeked jeune premier of a Nicias. The colorful, slick production, by Renaud Doucet (stage direction and choreographer) and Andre Barbe (set and costume designer), summoned the various Egyptian locales with Vegas-y stylings. George Manahao's conducting captured all the theatrical excitement of the score, including a ravishing account of the "Meditation" by violinist David Halen of the Saint Louis Symphony. Colin Graham's superb translation realized the potent sensual fervor of the text.

Andrew Porter's English translation of The Abduction from the Seraglio, commissioned by OTSL for its 1986 mounting of the opera, was the most elegant component of the ...