'COSI' CAST MAY BE BLAND, BUT IT'S STILL MOZART.

Byline: Donna Perlmutter Special to the Daily News

In the best of all possible worlds, an opera company could throw budget concerns to the wind and give its loyal audience many perspectives on a given work.

Take "Cosi Fan Tutte," for instance, which opened a six-performance run Tuesday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The Peter Hall production, new here in 1988 and last revived in 1991, still makes an extremely attractive vehicle for the Music Center Opera.

Its elegant classicism, framed cleverly by John Bury's modular unit set, helps focus the all-important ensemble spirit and interactions of the cast. What's more, it does so without nudging the original impulses of Mozart and da Ponte.

But wouldn't it be illuminating to see what else has been done in the name of this comedy of deception that, translated, means "Women Are Thus" - say, Jean Pierre Ponnelle's stylized staging, which treats the characters like chess pieces being moved around by a master manipulator, or Peter Sellars' version, which boldly transforms the rococo farce into a devastating contemporary psychodrama?

No doubt.

But this is not the best of all possible worlds. A darker interpretation, like that of Sellars, would have been especially welcome about now, what with a season that has seemed like an unending string of harmless masquerades bearing hardly a trace of the big, strapping 19th-century music dramas central to any opera enterprise.

Still, it could be argued that Mozart's score delivers all that is necessary - the sublime farewell trio "Soave Sia il Vento," Fiordiligi's aria, "Per Pieta," Ferrando's "Un 'Aura Amorosa"; the list goes on and on, with more than three and a half hours of inspired music ranging from light-headedly frivolous to poignant to tempestuous.

Under almost any circumstances, it's hard to not be thrilled hearing a tripping melody suddenly take on the portent of a minor key as it discloses the character's underlying vulnerabilities and sorrows.

What the first-nighters got, however, was another outing with the tried and true, something, in terms of the newly assembled cast, a few cuts below the level of previous incarnations. Musically, there was much to admire: ensemble singing with balance and poise. The dramatic part of that index, though, seemed comparatively flat, especially for those who came expecting to glimpse an inner emotion or to be moved by what it reveals.

That problem did not belong to German conductor Ingo Metzmacher, making his U.S. debut. He kept a firm grasp on the score and certainly knew his way around it. He projected lots of energy, cued the key moments and, most important in an ensemble opera like this, attended to rapport between stage and pit.

Rather, it was the cast that blanketed the proceedings in blandness - with or without the efforts of deputy director Stephen Lawless who, by now, is even further removed from Hall, this "Cosi's" originator.

Whatever the case, very little in the way of character definition came across Tuesday. Ideally, the two sets of lovers who play switcheroo are different types. But the sisters in question seemed quite alike, a point not helped by the vapid portrayals of the scenario's two schemers.

The plotting maid Despina, sung by Elizabeth Gale, was nearly indistinguishable from the sisters in her charge both by how she looked and sounded (just another pretty soubrette). Her accomplice, Don Alfonso, championed by none other than Claudio Desderi, seemed little more than a stick figure here.

Together, their deception hardly had an impact on Hillevi Martinpelto's Fiordiligi. While the Swedish soprano showed off her agile voice, lovely tone and considerable technique, she never evinced any furor in the Baroque aria "Come Scoglia," mock or otherwise. But the Dorabella of Marie McLaughlin, who hails from Scotland, had much more zest as the hedonistic sister and sang, notwithstanding some register breaks, with appealing sweetness.

Not so Michael Shade as Ferrando. Over the course of nearly four hours, his fine-focused, resonant, though somewhat metallic tenor began to sound overtuned to treble. But Richard Bernstein, his partner in deception, brought comic suavity and baritonal gold to the excesses of Guglielmo. It comes as no surprise that, after five years with the company and a deserved high place there, he is being sought elsewhere.

THE FACTS

The show: "Cosi Fan Tutte."

Where: The Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.

When: Saturday, Monday, March 7, 9, and 13.

Running time: Three hours, 40 minutes.

Tickets:Call Ticketmaster at [phone].

CAPTION(S):

PHOTO

Photo Fiordiligi (Hillevi Martinpelto), left, comforts Dorabella (Marie McLaughlin) after their lovers have gone away in a scene from the final dress rehearsal of "Cosi Fan Tutte" at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Shaun Dyer/Special to the Daily News