Sounds Good, Looks So-So

‘Norma� is Norma.

The opera may be one of the most beloved in the Italian repertory, and Bellini’s melodies among the most wondrously lyrical this side of Schubert and Lou Harrison. It may also have a terrific role for a mezzo-soprano.

But “Norma� is not often performed, because it can’t be performed unless a Norma, the Druid priestess who falls in love with a Roman enemy, can be found. The role requires a soprano able to spin the most delicate line one moment, then burst into dramatic ferocity the next. It asks a singing actress to be a tender mother and a wounded lover ready to kill her children to revenge their father.

As for a tenor, there is a part for one. But Pollione--the Roman proconsul in Gaul who tires of Norma and turns to a temple virgin, Adalgisa--is more stick figure than full-bodied character, and his music is less inspired than that of the ladies.

L.A. Opera has a Norma. Jane Eaglen, who sang the taxing role for the first time here in a new production Thursday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, has become, in the last two or three years, one of the most sought-after dramatic sopranos today and the current Norma of choice.

L.A. Opera also has an extraordinarily fine Adalgisa in Susanne Mentzer, a young mezzo-soprano alive to every dramatic nuance, with a lucid amber tone that blended beautifully with the metal of Eaglen’s soprano in their stunning second-act duet, “Mira, O, Norma.�

And yet it is because of a tenor that fans will be clamoring for “Norma� tickets, if for no other reason than to say they saw Jose Cura when.

The young Argentine, making his local debut Thursday, has only been singing opera professionally for three years. But Cura has it all. He has that special presence that causes you to never stop noticing him when he is on stage. He is exceptionally good-looking and could easily suit popular television or film. He sings with a firmness of voice that is smooth across the registers yet commandingly virile. His pitches are dead-on. He gives each phrase a natural musical shape. He can act. And it surely doesn’t hurt that he also happens to be a conductor and composer.

Best of all, Cura proved an ensemble player of the most noble sort, doing nothing to upstage the performance, only enhance it. That Cura was so believable seemed only to intensify Eaglen’s portrayal of Norma’s great emotional swings. The British soprano may not, in fact, be the ideal Norma. More suited to Wagner, she displays a bit too much strength and steel in the voice and personality. The coloratura runs are doable for her, but the flexibility does not sound effortless.

Still, there is incandescence to the voice and character, especially as tension builds. At one point Eaglen angrily grabbed Adalgisa hard enough to seem on the verge of actually hurting her. Such was the electricity that coursed through the evening.

It is an opera-goer’s greatest and rarest prize, anywhere in the world, to encounter three intelligent singers with world-class voices devoting themselves with equal measure to music and stage, as these three do. And Nicholas Muni, who directed the production, deserves credit for bringing good, realistic and sometimes surprising ideas to the characterizations, while never interfering with the music.

Some of the same can be said about Placido Domingo, who appeared in his capacity as L.A. Opera’s principal guest conductor. Though gaining valuable experience in the pit, he has still to get beyond the point where the mechanics of conducting can be taken for granted. But he certainly knows how to give singers the support they need.

And now the bad news. The production looks perfectly awful. A quasi-realistic unit set of ancient Gaul reveals primitive stone walls, piles of bones and cheesy-looking props. Worse still, as the curtain call proved by strongly illuminating the stage, neither John Conklin’s set nor costumes were quite as colorless as the dreary lighting throughout the performance made them seem.

Maybe there is an explanation for why L.A. Opera chose to show one of its most illustrious evenings in such bad light, but it’s hard to fathom. Conklin has been responsible for much imaginative work on the lyric stage, and Muni, whose direction seemed in a different creative universe, took pains to note in the program how closely he works in conception with Conklin.

But curiously, the company’s 11th season, 2 nights old, has already offered a case study in the impact that eye has on ear in opera. In “Pagliacci,� the night before, Franco Zeffirelli’s inflated decor stole the show. This time an unfortunate set robbed it of greatness.

* “Norma,� L.A. Opera, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. Sunday and Thursday, Sept. 18, 21, 7:30 p.m. Sept. 15, 2 p.m. $23-$130. (213) 365-3500.

* THREE SOPRANOS: Tibor Rudas tries to duplicate the success of the Three Tenors. F15