In review: Cooperstown, N.Y.

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y.

Nothing could be more heartening than to witness the courage of Glimmerglass Opera each year. There is always something to stimulate an opera-lover who is weary of the perennial top-ten diet. Regional companies complain that the penalty for deviation from a yearly round of La Traviatas or La Bohemes means a severe loss in income; the bottom line is no opera at all. Glimmerglass faced a similar crisis a few years back, when it began pursuing a more adventurous course, but clever programing and thoughtful choices have paid off. Crowds flocked to the Alice Busch Theater beside Otsego Lake to see Don Giovanni, Britten's Paul Bunyan, Handel's Tamerlano and Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard -- a season worthy of the patronage of Alice Busch, who died last May 27 and to whose memory the season was dedicated.

Much excitement centered on Britten's early Paul Bunyan, first performed at Columbia University in 1941. Britten didn't lose faith in it after its poor initial reception, revising and reviving it in the 1970s, not long before his death. One wishes he had lived to witness this production July 30, Aug. 11), directed by Mark Lamos and conducted by resident music director Stewart Robinson. It would have been easy to parody the gentle naivetes in W. H. Auden's text, but the verbal images and overriding impression of an America "on the move" came across with humor and charm, aided by Paul Steinberg's imaginative, colorful sets, Robert Wierzel's atmospheric lighting and Constance Hoffman's bright costumes.

Most cast members, from the company's Young American Artists' Group, managed to hold their own alongside excellent performances from Jeffrey Lentz as Johnny Inkslinger, David Lutken as the winning Ballad Singer and John McDonough, whose offstage role as Bunyan's voice proved the epitome of strong, firm benevolence.

Lamos' imaginative hand could be seen everywhere: the evocative opening with full "chorus of trees" -- the chorus all in blue, save for a...