“If I Were You,” the new opera by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer that had its world premiere on Thursday, Aug. 1, is about a guy who stumbles onto a magic formula for transferring his soul into the bodies and the lives of others. And like that guy, the piece itself often seems unsure just who it wants to be, trying on this identity and that in a search for dramatic cohesion.
It’s a little bit “Faust,” a little bit “Flying Dutchman” and a little bit “Freaky Friday.”
“如果我是你的话。”梅罗拉歌剧节目（旧金山歌剧院为年轻艺术家的夏季训练部门）首次介绍了一项新作品，而Heggie的选择同时显而易见并且受到启发。他的歌剧目录是从2000年的“死人走路”开始，并继续在去年的“这是美好的生活”中，就像一流的大师班，典雅，精明的声音写作和雄心勃勃的戏剧主义。
Perhaps even more to the point, he has a gift for tailoring his music to the specific requirements at hand — in this case, writing for an ensemble of young singers in a way that lets individuals shine without calling on anyone to be a virtuoso headliner.
The new score, for all its dramatic foibles, rises beautifully to those expectations. Thursday’s performance in Herbst Theatre, conducted with eloquent fluidity by Nicole Paiement, revealed a work of inventiveness and expressive urgency.
有一个经常性的旋律人物，这是构成歌词的中央图像的时间和命运的完美象征，它在作品的第一分钟出现，并立即在听众的大脑中寄托。有许多迷你阿里亚斯，每个阿里亚斯都有自信形状和巧妙的轮廓。管弦乐的写作具有丰富的质感，郁郁葱葱的覆盖层是轻快，结构紧缩的节奏。
Yet all of it is in the service of a story that keeps urging us to take it more seriously than it deserves. The protagonist, a young fellow by the name of Fabian, awakes in an ambulance after a car crash to find himself attended by a weirdly demonic EMT named Brittomara. She tells him that for the price of his immortal soul, he can acquire the ability to transform into anyone he wants just by murmuring a palindromic incantation.
在一个比法比安（Fabian）更严肃和有趣的人的手中，这可能是值得探索的礼物。但是，即使我们显然认为他将他视为遭受折磨的年轻浪漫主义者，后来是沃瑟（Werther），但证据很明显，法比安（Fabian）只是一个麻木。
到窗帘落在第一幕上时，他已经利用自己的礼物逃脱了老板的咀嚼becominghis boss, and then to evade a crime scene by becoming the investigating police officer. If those are the best uses he can think of for black magic, then his soul might not have been worth all that much to begin with.
Instead, “If I Were You” turns out to be an odd but fascinating portrait of Diana, the love interest that Fabian, in his doltish way, keeps trying to get next to. There’s no reason for us to believe that she would actually fall for the man she can somehow discern underneath the various physical guises Fabian presents, and there’s certainly no reason to believe that she would sacrifice her own soul to redeem him (unless it’s out of a Wagnerian belief that that’s what women are for). And yet, Diana emerges as the most compelling and radiant character onstage, a vision of hope whose optimism never cloys.
这在很大程度上归功于赫吉（Heggie）的明亮而令人回味的音乐给她，拱形的旋律变成了阳光明媚的和谐。在星期四，在两次演出中的第一场演出中的第一场演出中，这一发光也是女高音Esther Therea的宏伟唱歌的功能，这是一种热心的，音调的豪华表演，hegeie Heggie递给她并轻松派遣了它。
If Diana’s character note is her steadfastness, the Mephistophelean Brittomara is a constant shape-shifter, and mezzo-soprano Cara Collins moved with practiced ease among the character’s various personas, from satanic deal-maker to passive-aggressive bartender to (in a hilariously nimble patter aria) a fast-talking hairstylist from the boroughs.
男高音迈克尔·戴（Michael Day）作为原始的法比安（Fabian）做出了敏感但有些隐性的表演，让他取得了一系列的反爱，由拉斐尔·波尔托（Rafael Porto），蒂莫西·默里（Timothy Murray），爱德华·劳伦森（Edward Laurenson）和布兰登·斯科特·罗素（Brandon Scott Russell）进行了很好的处理。女高音帕特里夏·韦斯特利（Patricia Westley）是戴安娜（Diana）最好的朋友的生动，温柔的存在，梅佐（Mezzo-Sozzo-Soprano）伊迪丝·格罗斯曼（Edith Grossman）娱乐地摇摇欲坠，因为一个艰难的好时光，出于某种原因，她在枪支的错误端陷入困境。
The production, staged by director Keturah Stickann, makes ingenious use of the cramped stage of the Herbst, with just enough lighting and sound effects to make it possible to track the progress of souls. But none of it quite explains why this story needed to be told, and in quite this way.
When Hollywood tackles the age-old business of soul transfer — not just in “Freaky Friday,” but in “All of Me” and “Ghostbusters” and others I’m not thinking of at the moment — they do it for laughs, because the premise is inherently ridiculous. To imagine that it tells us anything deep or lasting about humanity is a stretch.
“If I Were You”:梅罗拉歌剧计划。下午2点8月3日星期六和8月4日星期日。晚上7:308月6日，星期二。$ 35- $ 80。Herbst剧院，S.F。401 Van Ness Ave.415-864-3330。www.merola.org