CONSIDERED OPINION OF THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA CONCERT OF 9/27/07

Edvard Grieg: Peer Gynt, Op. 23. (John de Lancie, narr.; Joshua Hopkins, bar.; Inger Dam-Jensen, sop.; Oberlin College Chorus; Cleveland State University Chorale; Cleveland Orchestra Chamber Chorus; Vladimir Ashkenazy, cond.)

It was in a little shop near Toronto's St. Lawrence Market that I spotted it two weeks ago. Three or four inches high. Just five dollars Canadian. It was the star of this weekend's Cleveland Orchestra program, rendered in mass-produced plastic. And I got to wondering: how many performers on Cleveland Orchestra subscription concerts have had their own action figure?

John de Lancie, who narrates the Orchestra's performances of Edvard Grieg's incidental music for Peer Gynt, earned immortality alongside G.I. Joe by virtue of a dozen televised appearances as Q—a nearly omnipotent being who toys with the lives of characters in various incarnations of Star Trek. But de Lancie's appearance at Severance Hall is no mere publicity gimmick. His role is to provide context: an ongoing summary of the play's events, which the actor delivers with uncommon panache. And in this case, context is critical.

More than a few music-lovers, reading Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt after becoming enamored of Edvard Grieg's ingratiating score, have probably been surprised at the original's edginess. "I think people will sense the irony behind it," Grieg wrote of one number. And yet, whistling along with "Morning Mood" or "In the Hall of the Mountain King," you might easily imagine Peer Gynt is a child's fairytale. Only later do you find how often Ibsen's narrative pivots on subjects you'd probably not find on a preschooler's bookshelf: drunken lechery, a Cairo madhouse, the Carolina slave trade.

De Lancie is joined in the presentation by combined choruses from Oberlin, Cleveland State, and the Cleveland Orchestra, and by eight singers who, from time to time, are assigned spoken lines as well. In the case of baritone Joshua Hopkins, who plays the title character, the scheme proves a bit risky—his delivery's rather artificial. But musically, this Peer Gynt is largely successful, in part thanks to the energetic conducting of Vladimir Ashkenazy.

But does it work as drama? On that point I feel rather ambivalent. By design, the project follows the contours of Grieg's music rather than of Ibsen's writing. Consequently you miss some of the play's best passages: Peer's account of his trade in idols with China; his visit to the Egyptian asylum; the way he saves his own life in a shipwreck by drowning the ship's cook. The result seems distinctly Disneyfied.

Don't get me wrong. The evening has much to recommend it: good music, lively storytelling, a genial host. And yet you'll be doing yourself a disservice if you don't also pick up Ibsen's original to see what you've missed. This Cleveland Orchestra Peer Gynt is unquestionably amiable. But Ibsen's Peer Gynt more closely resembles Q's description of deep space in Star Trek: The Next Generation: "It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."

Jerome Crossley for WCLV 104/9.

Considered Opinions is WCLV's program that reviews performances by Cleveland-area music ensembles. Commentator Jerome Crossley offers an informed and witty perspective on performances by groups that include the Cleveland Orchestra, Opera Cleveland, and Red {an orchestra}. Considered Opinions typically airs at 9.45 a.m., 12.20 p.m., and 5.20 p.m. the Friday following a Cleveland Orchestra concert, and it repeats at 9.45 a.m. on Saturday. Other air-times depend on the schedule of the ensembles reviewed.

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