BWW Reviews: STREETCAR with Renee Fleming Jumps the Rail at Carnegie Hall

Andre Previn's operatic version of Tennesee Williams's A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, with a libretto by Andrew Littell, made its belated New York debut at Carnegie Hall on Thursday March 14. Even 15 years after its premiere at the San Francisco Opera, it still plays to Renee Fleming's vocal strengths, with her shimmering, lyric soprano and soaring high notes. Previn wrote the role of Blanche specifically with Fleming in mind and it shows with every note she sings.

But is she Blanche? Unfortunately, she's too healthy, too sane and too much a star to be the character that Williams created, a woman who clings to a false gentility--and her sanity--from the moment that she arrives on stage. It also doesn't help that she has zero chemistry with New Zealand baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes the Stanley Kowalski of the evening. Rhodes' muscular baritone carries the threat that Blanche should feel, but he might as well be playing to the Merry Widow.

The only time Fleming makes a real connection to the role is in her scenes with Stanley's friend, Mitch. Sung with an honest, bright, tenor by Anthony Dean Griffey, Mitch represents all that Blanche thinks she wants at this stage in her life. Playing off Griffey, Fleming is able to conjure up Blanche's hopes and, later, her failure of winning him.

Previn's eclectic score runs the gamut from bluesy jazz to Strauss-y harmonies, but often sounds like it would be more comfortable as part of a film. The music at the end of Act I, alluringly hummed by Susanna Phillips, who gives a winning portrayal of Blanche's sister/Stanley's wife, Stella, sounds like it should be called "Stella's Theme" and released as a single.

That isn't to say that this is an unappealing work; it's not. There are some lovely arias, including "I want magic," which Fleming has adopted for her recital programs, and Mitch's plaintive "I'm not a boy," though they tend to stop rather than flow from the action. In short, this is not the score that would make us forget, instead of long for, the play.

The Carnegie Hall production went all out to give the opera the best showcase possible, in a semi-staged production, well directed by Brad Dalton, with costumes by Johann Stegmeir and lighting by Alan Adelman. The Orchestra of St. Luke's led by Patrick Summers handsomely handled all the curveballs that Previn's music could throw at it. The cast was rounded out with able performances by Victoria Livengood and Dominic Armstrong, as Eunice and Steve Hubbell, and Andrew Bidlack as a Young Collector.

What might have resulted if Tennesee Williams's STREETCAR had been around for the Verdi of TRAVIATA or the Puccini of MANON LESCAUT, composers who might have had an affinity for the play's central character? Obviously, we'll never know--so we will have to be content to settle for the not-inconsiderable music of the playwright, until the next composer takes a shine to the work.

"Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers," Blanche says to the doctor who has come to take her to the asylum at the end of the opera. Unlike the film, which veers back to close on Stanley and Stella, this version reclaims the story as Blanche's, as Williams wrote it. STREETCAR is Blanche. Too bad that Fleming isn't.

Photo © 2013 Richard Termine

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