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Staging Wagner: a daring devotion

For Constantine Grame, Das Rheingold is a risk that's worth taking.

By ELENA LESLEY
Published April 27, 2007

TARPON SPRINGS - Mary Anne Boone flutters across the stage of City Hall's auditorium, thin strips of gauze shimmering behind her. The space where city commissioners battle over sewer lines and Wal-Mart has been transformed into a scene from Germanic mythology, and as a river nymph, she's responsible for guarding an all-powerful hunk of gold.

Soon, she's joined by her two fellow Rhine maidens. They each describe their duty in arioso - a mixture of recitation and music - as stage lights dart off their winglike drapes.

The first scene of Das Rheingold is visually - and aurally - captivating.

So much so that viewers could easily miss a figure who sits hunched just beneath the stage, a one-man orchestra who directs cast members while pounding out the entire score on a grand piano.

Constantine Grame is a lifelong devotee of Richard Wagner - he saw his first Met production of Das Rheingold via a PBS simulcast when he was 8.

Grame, homeschooled by his two world music scholar parents, was introduced early to a variety of musical forms. But opera - particularly Wagerian opera - was the one that stuck.

"The stories are so evocative," Grame says of Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen," a set of four operas, the first of which is Das Rheingold. "The Gods of Thunder, ring of power, enchanted gold. What child wouldn't enjoy that?"

Now 24, Grame is an accomplished vocalist, pianist, director. And he is the driving force behind the ambitious scene on City Hall's stage. For more than a year he has worked toward this night, handpicking singers who could master the German composer's challenging score, who weren't intimidated by Grame's unorthodox and some may say misguided "community Wagner" scheme.

Wagner singers generally possess a real "meat and potatoes voice," as one soprano describes it, that they can project over a mammoth orchestra. There is little distinction between songs, which tend to flow into each other like "a three-hour conversation," adds Boone of Tarpon Springs, who takes care of her two children when she isn't guarding enchanted gold.

"He's daring," says cast member Pat Agnew, a Clearwater teacher who works in Dunedin. "This isn't New York. It's a far cry from Germany. No one puts on Wagner in this area."

She re-enacts the exchange when Grame first suggested it to her.

"Leave me to Verdi!" she cries, thrusting her arms out in a protective stance. "I'll do Mozart. You can't make me do Wagner!"

But Grame's enthusiasm - his long-term goal is to also stage the three other operas of "Der Ring des Nibelungen" in Tarpon Springs - is infectious. Agnew has since studied the composer at the graduate level.

Other local singers, many of them amateurs, were willing to take on the challenge as well. Through his other endeavors -- Gilbert and Sullivan works, Hansel and Gretel, The Magic Flute - the young musician has already established a devoted following.

"Constantine's the pied piper of Tarpon Springs," says acclaimed singer and Clearwater High graduate Maria Zouves. "People make what he wants work."

For Das Rheingold, Grame drew performers from throughout Tampa Bay - and even an audience of some heavy hitters in the opera world.

When legendary baritone Sherrill Milnes, Zouves' husband, heard Grame was putting on Das Rheingold, he asked to attend the dress rehearsal. Though Grame had worked as an accompanist in Milnes' voice workshop program for several years, this was the first time the star had attended one of his productions.

Dress rehearsal night, Grame paced the backstage corridors.

A spark of creative energy, he was more wired than usual as he rushed spears and horned hats to appropriate characters, double-checked sets inspired by the original 19th century production of Das Rheingold.

He'd had his hair, generally a mop of red curls, respectably trimmed and styled. Despite the skimpy audience, he knew the performance was important.

But as the curtain parted, mist swirling onto the stage, Grame immersed himself in the music.

Rhine maidens chirped their romantic taunts. The deep voice of Wotan, the Ruler of the Gods, boomed throughout the auditorium. Fair Freia, goddess of love, fulfilled her role as a maiden in distress.

It wasn't perfect. But the cast - a collection of lawyers and office workers, opera buffs and musical theater fans - tackled the daunting score with gusto.

"Given the budget limitations and pool of talent, it's quite amazing, really," Milnes remarked during a break in the action. "It's a noble endeavor."

After nearly three hours of Wagner, he joined the handful of other viewers in prolonged, and energetic, applause.

"Get some ice for Grame's fingers!" a man called out.

And as cast members flocked to Milnes, thanking him for coming and praising his body of work, the legend turned his attention to Grame, who grinned nervously, like a student waiting for his professor's approval.

You need more swirling mist, Milnes remarked, and some true Wagner buffs may take issue with Das Rheingold on piano.

But audience members "can still get the meat of Wagner," Milnes said.

And Grame's performance: "A tour de force."

Elena Lesley can be reached at elesley@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4167.

If you go

Das Rheingold

What: Richard Wagner's classic work tells the story of giants, dwarves, gods and water nymphs, and their struggle over love, greed and revenge. The opera will be sung in English.

When: 8 p.m. today and 2 p.m. Sunday.

Where: Tarpon Springs Performing Arts Center in City Hall, 324 E Pine.

Tickets: $16, $14 for center members and students. Call (727) 942-5605.

[Last modified April 26, 2007, 23:36:04]