DATE: Wednesday, April 16, 1997             TAG: 9704160026

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 
                                            LENGTH:  114 lines

OK! BUT IS IT OPERA?"OKLAHOMA!" MAY SEEM LIKE AN ODD PRODUCTION FOR THE VIRGINIA OPERA COMPANY TO STAGE, BUT THE CLASSIC MUSICAL IS A GOOD CHOICE.

THIS ``OKLAHOMA!'' has to be more than OK.

After all, this is the Virginia Opera Company, the 15th largest opera company in the United States - home of Puccini and mad scenes from Lucia What's-Her-Face. Heady stuff!

So what's a bunch of dancin' cowhands and feudin' farmers doing here now?

According to conductor Jerry Shannon and Greg Ganakas, director and choreographer, ``Oklahoma!'' (complete with exclamation point) has more than a reputable claim to be on the stage of an opera house.

``It's a landmark musical. It changed the way musicals have been performed ever since,'' Shannon said. `` `Show Boat' was a breakthrough but it was `Oklahoma!' which cemented the structure - music that told a story, with dance and all the other components integrated.''

He's right, and so is the opera company in taking off its high hat and putting on its cowboy hat to honor this time-honored classic. The corn might be as high as an elephant's eye, but this is by no means a pushover of a show to stage. If you don't capture the folksiness as well as the complicated lyricism of the Rodgers and Hammerstein score, you can fall on your face as fast as Tosca diving off the towers in a more serious musical.

``There has to be an aura of honesty,'' said director Ganakas. ``I think it has something to do with the millennium. As a new century approaches, people are thinking about a new frontier. This show looks back toward a time when a more obvious frontier was evident.''

Indeed, hidden behind the melodic lines of ``Oklahoma!'' is quite a bit of history. The song about how the ``Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends'' effectively illustrates the basic conflict of land possession as the frontier pushed westward. And there is a look back east as Will Parker (Frank Baiocchi, taking time out from ``Miss Saigon'' on Broadway) sings about how ``everything's up to date in Kansas City,'' where ``they've gone about as far as they can go.''

Ganakas, who is director of the theater arts department at New York University when he isn't taking jobs like directing here, says: ``We might wonder what these people are going to be like then they get telephones. That's not too far in the future for them.''

Shannon urged the cast to refer to the Oscar-winning film ``Dances With Wolves'' as a time frame. ``It's about the same era,'' he said. ``Things weren't easy. It was not an easy life. Farmers were putting down roots and ending the transient movement. It's like a very large chamber musical. We're using the full orchestration of Robert Russell Bennett.'' The production features an orchestra of about 25 players and a cast of more than 30.

Opera purists might carp, but Shannon, who was associate director of Virginia Opera from 1992 to 1996, says no apologies are needed for an opera company choosing a theater piece like ``Oklahoma!''

``We pay honor to a work like this by doing it. It's not a case of choosing this to make money. Sure, we'll attract people to the opera house who haven't been all year, but that wouldn't happen if we weren't doing a larger, and more expensive, production. If we had done `Carousel' in a cheapjack way, `Oklahoma!' wouldn't be happening. After the success of `Carousel,' we considered many titles, including `South Pacific,' but this one is the real challenge.''

Shannon last conducted the company with ``The Magic Flute'' before leaving to head the successful Mobile Opera in Alabama.

``I was very vocal in encouraging VOA to take this new initiative into musical theater,'' he said. ``I supported the movement toward adding a fifth production and making it a musical theater entry. I felt bad, then, about leaving, so I wanted to come back and be a part this.''

``The thing is that opera companies around the country have the resources, and the funds, to do these shows in a way that would never otherwise be done. An opera company production of `Oklahoma!' is going to have production values you'd never find in community theater or, for that matter, in most regional theaters. It's a different animal. That's why it's so important that we do musical theater.''

``Oklahoma!'' broke new ground when the curtain went up March 31, 1942, on a bare stage with just Aunt Eller and her churn. Up until that time, musical shows had big opening numbers - chorus girls and such. With the sound of cowboy Curly's ode to morning, there was the hint that something new was happening here - a story was being told in song.

And there is poetry in Hammerstein's lyrics. A firm picture of the frontier is immediate: cattle standing like statues, the bright golden haze on the meadow. Curly, understandably, has a reason to sing, ``I've got a beautiful feelin', everything's goin' my way.''

Curly will be played by Kirk Mouser, who has played Raul in ``Phantom of the Opera'' and Marius in ``Les Miserables'' elsewhere. Laurey will be played by Laura Knoop, who scored here in ``Carousel'' last year.

It is the dance, though, that often presents the greatest challenge with this show. The late Agnes de Mille, the niece of filmmaker Cecil B. de Mille, had been fired from several Broadway shows when she took on ``Oklahoma!'' and created the ``Dream Ballet,'' which began a new era of dance fitting into the plot.

Ganakas has chosen not to recreate de Mille's choreography. ``Dancers are better now than they were then and styles are different,'' he said. ``Some of Agnes' lifts are still there, but we go further with the `Dream Ballet.' ''

The choreographer, who worked with de Mille on a production of ``Brigadoon'' for the Paper Mill Playhouse in New England a few years ago, remembered her as ``a tough, no-nonsense lady.''

The co-creators admit that there is pressure to keep ``Oklahoma!'' traditional. This is one classic that has never had an avant-garde or an updated version. No one would dare. It is as much a part of Americana as the hot dog.

One of the problems is clearly the familiarity of the show. One by one, the songs are trotted out: ``Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin,' '' ``The Surrey With the Fringe on Top,'' ``People Will Say We're in Love,'' ``I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say No,'' ``Kansas City'' and all the rest.

The singers on stage may have the kind of competition usually confined to showers or elevators. If unrestrained, the audience is prone to break into a sing-along faster than Carmen could strike a match.

You have to admit, it's not a problem the opera house has with ``La boheme.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by Jim Walker/The Virginia-Pilot

[scene from the show]

Kirk Mouser and Laura Knopp star in the Virginia Opera's "Oklahoma!"

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