Robert Livingston Aldridge
Elmer Gantry
Keith Phares, Patricia Risley, Vale Rideout, Frank Kelley, Heather Buck; Florentine Opera Company and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. William Boggs conducting.
(Naxos, two discs, ****)
Sinclair Lewis' iconic novel Elmer Gantry has been adapted so often (film and numerous stage musicals) that it's easy to wonder what anybody could bring to it, much less a composer who isn't all that widely known. Yet, few recent American operas have been so musically and dramatically assured at every turn or so perfectly paced and musically inviting.
The Herschel Garfein libretto takes the long view, following the title character from his dissolute student days and the faked religious conversion that guides his suspicious ambitions from there on. Characters have so much dimension that you get all sides of the story. Naturally, the revival- meeting scenes are grand-opera opportunities that Aldridge mines for all their worth, but with a dramatic detail and compassion that shows this world from the inside out.
The rhythmically sparkling score contains nothing you haven't heard before, but it never feels secondhand, and the Florentine Opera performance under conductor Boggs is as well- prepared and as dramat- ically realized as one would want.
- David Patrick Stearns
