A Streetcar Named Desire

August 3rd 2007 12:00 am | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

Streetcar remains a great play

Yvonne Kenny as Blanche Dubois Philip Littell's libretto remains faithful to Williams' play, not least because the Williams estate is ferocious in protecting his work. This is no bad thing, even if it was a nightmare for Littell and Previn, because Streetcar is a play whose language, rhythms and poetry are about as musical as they could be without actually being set to music. Indeed, the perceived operatic quality of the play was evidently seen as one of the stumbling blocks to successful adaptation. Nevertheless, in the opinion of San Francisco Opera, Previn was the composer most likely: a once precocious talent (Oscar-nominee in 1950 at age 21 for Best Musical Scoring on Three Little Words) now elevated to Grand Old Man of Music status via a long and illustrious career as musical adapter and arranger, pianist and conductor; but with dubious qualifications as a composer of a full-length opera.

The longest piece Previn has composed, aside from Streetcar, is the 38-minute violin concerto "Anne Sophie", written for then wife Anne-Sophie Mutter in 2001. He has composed virtually no original music for voice. This is probably the most crucial clue to understanding his Streetcar: all his music for voice has been adaptations of the work of others (from Gigi, andIrma La Douce onwards) while his own original music is instrumental. It could perhaps account for the absence of sympathy for the human voice in the music of Streetcar. The opera opens with some brilliant instrumental scene and mood setting: reeds and brass dominate in a trad jazz and blues flavoured portrait of New Orleans' musical history. Nevertheless, from the moment Blanche intones the fabled opening lines: "They told me to take a streetcar named Desire and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and rid six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields" it seems that the composer's thought patterns ran along the lines of: hmm, soprano - high notes; and ah, baritone - okay, low notes; and took it from there.

The result is a score which skirts perilously close to monotony and not simply because so much is recitative. The orchestra, under Tom Woods, makes the most of its diverse opportunities and is tight and dynamic in the service of music that always favours the players. Stanley bellows a lot, while the character of Blanche - whose role is several times longer than 38 minutes - is mainly dull, dull, dull. It also requires Yvonne Kenny, in Opera Australia's production, to spend an uncomfortable amount of time beyond the natural glory of her range and this is distressing.

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