LA Opera: Der Zwerg and Der Zerbrochene Krug

(Mary Dunleavy and Rodrick Dixon in LA Opera's production of Der Zwerg. Photo: Robert Millard)

There is only one performance left of LA Opera's Recovered Voices program this Saturday evening: if you haven't already seen it, GO. This double bill of rarely performed operas, Der zerbrochene Krug (The Broken Jug) and Der Zwerg (The Dwarf), is entirely worth seeing, particularly for Der Zwerg. The Recovered Voices series is LA Opera music director James Conlon's effort to find and perform operas that were suppressed by the Nazis. A lot of press on this project has focused on the unearthing of these works lost during World War II and the Holocaust, which made the whole thing sound dreary, like more of a historical exercise. But I'm glad that I ended up going two weekends ago - it was good just to see something new to me, especially something as interesting as Der Zwerg.

Alexander Zemlinsky's one-act opera Der Zwerg (The Dwarf) was an unexpected, wonderful surprise - beautiful and lush, heartbreaking and at times chilling. First performed in 1922, Der Zwerg is loosely based on Oscar Wilde's play "The Birthday of the Infanta." Wilde's play in turn drew inspiration from Diego Velasquez' painting Las Meniñas, a striking portrait of the the Spanish princess (the infanta) and her ladies in waiting, one of which is a dwarf. The play and the opera tell a fantastical story of an ugly male dwarf given to the Infanta as a birthday gift. The dwarf, however, has never seen a reflection of himself and thinks that he is a tall, handsome knight, mistaking laughter around him for friendliness. He falls in love with the Infanta, who initially shows him kindness but ultimately rejects him, calling him a monster. He dies in sadness when he discovers a mirror and his ugly reflection.

So it's not exactly the happiest story, but a major part of the reason this Der Zwerg worked so well was the production. It's visually stunning, with the huge drawing room with guilded details, the elaborate costumes and a staging that both presented the opulence of the Spanish court and suggested its dark, Stepford Wives-like heartlessness. Zemlinsky's music is gorgeous to hear - through composed but tuneful, with shimmering orchestrations and choral arrangements.

Der zerbrochene Krug is a trifle of an opera, used here as a curtain raiser for the evening. It's fun enough and attractively sung, though not particularly distinctive or memorable. This staging starts off very creatively, with a shadow pantomime against the drop curtain, which features a large cut-out of a jug. The silly ballet we see sets up the opera's backstory that we otherwise would have to discern only through the sung text (or supertitles for most of us), plus it was visually engaging. But the rest of the staging was fairly slapstick, run of the mill comedic opera stuff. The 45 minute piece was over quickly, and Der Zwerg was what made this double bill memorable.

Conlon conducted the orchestra magnificently in both pieces. The playing had urgency and sparkle, with such a solid foundation of music, the beautiful production of Der Zwerg was icing on the cake.