He May Be Loathsome, But This Evangelist Has Pipes

MONTCLAIR, N.J. — A 1960 movie review in The New York Times of “Elmer Gantry,” based on Sinclair Lewis’s scathing 1927 satire about a womanizing preacher, noted that “the sleaziness of some forms of evangelism is not too pressing an issue these days.” That, of course, was before the improprieties of Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker and Ted Haggard made embarrassing headlines.

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With the growth of commercialized megachurches and presidential candidates who trumpet their faith, an operatic “Elmer Gantry” seems particularly timely, perhaps even more so than when its creators — the composer Robert Aldridge and the librettist Herschel Garfein — began working on it 17 years ago. They had trouble finding a home, but “Elmer Gantry” finally had its premiere in November at the Nashville Opera, which produced this production with Montclair State University in New Jersey, where it opened on Wednesday.

Mr. Aldridge has said he wants to please mainstream audiences with this opera, and his vibrantly lyrical, cinematic score (sometimes redolent of Gershwin and Copland) unleashes no great dissonances or avant-gardisms on the unsuspecting listener. The populist score, with its tuneful arias, fits Mr. Garfein’s libretto, in which Lewis’s acerbic, relentless satire has been toned down to offer a more playfully humorous, balanced portrait of religion. (Some of the colorful sting of Lewis’s prose is inevitably lost, but having the premiere of an atonal irreverent opera in the Bible Belt would probably not have been wise.)

Mr. Aldridge incorporates gospel music and hymns into a classical idiom, as Carlisle Floyd and Gershwin weaved the vernacular into their operas. John Hoomes’s intelligent staging avoids hokiness, and the well-rehearsed student chorus sang with heartfelt conviction. (The chorus, whose members are sometimes dressed in brightly colored gospel robes by the costume designer Camille Assaf, has a starring role in this opera.) Takeshi Kata’s effective sets included a garish electric cross of gold lights in the new tabernacle of the preacher Sharon Falconer.

Just as the film (starring Burt Lancaster) offers a more likable title character than the book’s loathsome, conniving and perennially heartless protagonist, the operatic Gantry is a more appealing character, though still seriously flawed. The baritone Keith Phares deftly illuminated both Gantry’s rapscallion ways and his genuine introspection with a warm voice and a lively stage presence.

Jennifer Rivera, who sang with a radiant mezzo-soprano, was luminous as an almost saintly Sharon Falconer. William Ferguson was convincing as the earnest Frank Shallard. Most of the innumerable secondary characters in the book are omitted, but the strong cast also includes Frank Kelley as Eddie Fislinger, Malinda Haslett as Lulu, Brian Banion as Reverend Baines and David Salsbery Fry as T. J. Rigg.

With few exceptions, diction among soloists and chorus was generally clear, and the pace was lively. The Montclair State University Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Paul Hostetter, played with more polish and verve than some professional ensembles.

The creators of “Elmer Gantry” have said that they want to give “nonbelievers a twinge of belief” and “believers a twinge of doubt.” Though unlikely to have atheists on their knees, the opera is a tunefully entertaining and thoughtful piece of theater.

Elmer Gantry repeats Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. (all-student cast on Saturday). Kasser Theater, Montclair State University, Valley Road and Normal Avenue, Montclair, N.J.; (973) 655-5112, peakperfs.org.

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