Broadway Bound 

The roster of current shows on Broadway is solid — financially and qualitatively. Sales for Phantom of the Opera seem to have been rejuvenated by the release of the movie version. Avenue Q, Beauty and the Beast, Chicago, Fiddler on the Roof, Hairspray, Movin' Out, Pacific Overtures, Rent, The Producers, and 12 Angry Men were still selling strongly after the holiday rush. Besides Phantom, shows that ran the table for January 3-9, selling every available seat, were 700 Sundays, Mamma Mia! The Lion King, and Wicked.

Where's the beef? August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean, starring Phylicia Rashad, is clearly the playwright's most visionary drama to date, the cornerstone of his epic 10-play journey across 20th Century America. In its second go-round on Broadway, Pacific Overtures can lay claim to being the most ambitious effort in Stephen Sondheim's cerebral oeuvre. And if Michael Frayn's Democracy doesn't quite have the freshness and éclat of Copenhagen, it certainly boasts the same intellectual and historical heft.

Still, the dyspeptic posse of Broadway theater critics has found numerous reasons to grouse. Dramas like Gem of the Ocean are so expensive to bring to Broadway, wails the New York Times, that August almost didn't get there in December. Others bemoan this season's failure to hatch a new blockbuster hit of Wicked proportions. Likely hits in the pipeline such as Good Vibrations and All Shook Up get derided for being "jukebox" musicals without solid storylines. And the dread label of "unoriginal" is affixed to all book musicals trading on titles with proven movie success — sufficient reason to sneer at Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Monty Python's Spamalot before they take Gotham by storm in March.

Tough crowd. You can complain that most of the crop are one-person shows, revivals, or Brit imports, but with eight non-musicals on Broadway for the holidays, we can leave the species off the endangered list. Ironically, the strongest new American drama on the scene, John Patrick Shanley's Doubt, may not be able to wrest this season's Tony Award from Gem of the Ocean because there may not be a vacant Broadway-sized theater in time to qualify for the prize.

Meanwhile, the show is running at Manhattan Theatre Club through January 30, and you can't get a ticket. Dearly departed Michael Bush is credited as the director of artistic production for the Shanley smash, proving conclusively that there is life after Rep.

As far as those "jukebox" and "unoriginal" brickbats, George Gershwin and Cole Porter cashed in on loosely plotted musicals based on their songbooks without seriously damaging their prestige — after Verdi and Puccini had stolen their venerated storylines with perfect impunity. Or to quote the old Arabian proverb, courtesy of Mr. Bush: "The dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on."

During my recent 12-day holiday in New York, I managed to take in 14 shows: seven new Broadway productions, five off-Broadway offerings, and two operas. Here are my reviews, along with some ticket-buying tips.

Broadway

700 Sundays (**** out of 4) — To say that Billy Crystal has become this season's Hugh Jackman is something of an understatement. Crystal is likely to follow in the screen Wolverine's paw steps and devour a Tony Award in his Broadway debut — while succeeding Jackman at the podium hosting the ceremonies in June. But Mr. Mahvelous's one-man show, chronicling his Long Island childhood with a heartfelt personal tribute to his dad, is currently bringing in more cash per performance than Boy from Oz did a year ago. The difference in profitability is staggering when you consider that Sundays has 27 fewer actors onstage than the musical with Jackman's name on the marquee. Not to mention Oz's two standbys and the union minimum of 18 musicians.

Crystal gazers will no doubt recognize a shard or two from the comedian's stand-up. Some of us may have ferried through his birth canal before. We've likely heard how Billy's worship of Mickey Mantle inspired him to perform his bar mitzvah rites in an Oklahoma drawl.

But I'd never known that Crystal had been to his first movie theater in the lap of jazz legend Billie Holiday — or that his father had the guts to record Lady Day's "Strange Fruit" for the first time on his Commodore Records label. With the assistance of Alan Zweibel, Crystal skillfully interlaces heartfelt reminiscence with his trusty one-liners, weaving a narrative that is both fascinating and nostalgic.

We seem to be visiting with Crystal on his front porch. The intimacy is further heightened when the front windows disappear and scrapbook memorabilia — or 8mm-film footage shot by his dad — are projected on the screen. So we see Mantle close-up tossing baseballs with his teammates on the fateful day of Billy's first pilgrimage to Yankee Stadium. Or, with lights merely flickering, we watch a shtick where Crystal mimes a home movie.

During the 20 segments after intermission, Crystal lingers on his father's death just long enough for it to continue resonating. He masters long-form narration rather impressively, easing rather than rushing into his chronological presentation, planting little signposts along the way in Act 1 that he deftly references in Act 2. When he earns an athletic scholarship, we're reminded that he learned to hit the curveball from his dad. We revisit Yankee Stadium during 2001 World Series shortly after 9/11 — this time in the VIP box — where Crystal has the opportunity to lampoon fellow guests Henry Kissinger and President Bush.

And he makes his second fantasy journey to confront God, a segment so powerful that many in our audience presumed it was the finale. Even his mom's death, which occurred while he was trying out this homage to Dad, is woven into the fabric, adding to the spontaneity and candor. Des McAnuff's direction is lightly but inconsistently stylized, leaving us with a couple of stagey moments, but Crystal's spell prevails.

The show is slated to close on March 5 with all non-premium tickets sold until then. I think it's fairly safe to anticipate at least one extension of the run to appease fans and enhance Crystal's electability at Tony time. Grab a seat if you can.

La Cage aux Folles (***1/2) — Critics gave this glitzy revival a lukewarm reception when it opened in early December, saying that Gary Beach's Albin/ZaZa was bland and that the Harvey Fierstein/Jerry Herman 1983 musical had devolved into a crossdressing tribute to family values. Hardly two weeks later, Beach was breathing fire into his Act 1 closer, "I Am What I Am," transforming the entire evening into a fervid affirmation of individualism. Quite frankly, I was trembling at intermission after what I'd just seen.

Compared to his Tony-winning antics as Roger de Bris in The Producers, Beach really has backed off somewhat on his flamboyance. But that's all for the good when Albin's stepson sees the light, and ZaZa's comedy still sparkles. There's nothing particularly Gallic about Daniel Davis, renowned for his starchy stint in The Nanny on TV. But his urbanity as Georges, proprietor of the flaming St. Tropez nightspot, lends a classy silken sheen to both of his troubled relationships. His ambivalence toward his son Jean-Michel is particularly well-gauged.

Wickedness blossoms all evening long. William Ivey Long's costume designs range from the bohemian to the incorrigible, and set designer Scott Pask allows his palette to run wild among crimson, pink, fuchsia, and purple each time we revisit La Cage — with dangling swings and ropes to add kitsch and kink.

A former CL Newcomer of the Year, Will Taylor, is among Les Cagelles, surely one of the high-kickingest chorus lines to explode anywhere. With a book and score as sturdy as this one — and crusading homophobes still on the loose in high places — La Cage remains relevant and powerful.

Gem of the Ocean (***1/2) — August Wilson's mighty ambition, stretching across a decade-by-decade, 10-play cycle of compassionate, poetically engaged playwriting, doesn't really stop at showing us the black experience in the 20th Century. No, Wilson is concerned with the full cargo of the African Diaspora, the history of suffering, the heritage of achievement, and the demons hatched in steerage and slavery that bedevil the race from within.

Gem stands chronologically at the shore of Wilson's sequence, setting us down in 1904 Pittsburgh. It's the crossroads where the historic and legendary past meets the struggles, the triumphs, and the heartbreaks to come. With Phylicia Rashad as the 285-year-old Aunt Ester, all the precious silt of black bondage is dropped inside her Wylie Avenue parlor. Her humble house of refuge is mystically transfigured in an unforgettable scene where she takes young Citizen Barlow on a voyage of purification to the City of Bones. Part of Ester's expiation ritual takes us back to the bowels of the ship that carried her across the ocean to America.

There's an elegant symmetry between our guilt-ravaged hero, Citizen, and the ruthless Caesar, willing materialistic enforcer of the prevailing white order. Citizen has killed a man by stealing and failing to speak out on behalf of the man accused of the crime. Caesar has killed a man for stealing — and not listening when he was ordered to surrender. Similar touches of Wilson's craft are deeply woven everywhere.

While the Citizen-Caesar conflict is certainly intended to re-echo through the corridors of Wilson's succeeding pieces, the most bedazzling facets of Gem are the matriarchal Aunt Ester and the charismatic Solly Two Kings. If Ester heals Citizen's soul and cleanses his spirit, it's Solly who passes along the torch of a heroic mission.

Rashad certainly merits all the accolades she has received for the utterly unique Aunt Ester, but you're likely to be even more beguiled by the raspy-voiced Anthony Chisholm as the phlegmatic Solly. Wilson lovingly piles one colorful layer upon another in assembling the maverick's captivating life story. He has ranged from Alabama to Canada — as a slave, a Union scout, and a daredevil pilot who liberated scores of fugitive slaves with the Underground Railroad. Now at 67, bigger than life in an outré outfit that would do Long John Silver proud, Solly makes his living peddling dog-shit!

A truly wondrous evening.

Democracy (***1/4) — Michael Frayn's theater accomplishments are truly amazing. With his two previous signature works, Noises Off and Copenhagen, the playwright has ranged from backstage farce to nuclear fission and uncertainty theory. Now with Democracy he has veered off into high-stakes Cold War politics, spiced with the machinations of party infighting and the deviousness of embedded spies.

Yet there isn't a full act of honest-to-God stage dialogue in the three works put together! You probably remember the repetitious rehearsals and disastrous performance of Noises Off, sandwiched around an orgy of frantic backstage mime. Then came the multiple narrators of Copenhagen, the labyrinthine circular structure, and the endless replays of the conversation that might have occurred between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.

As Günter Guillaume, the East German mole who penetrated Chancellor Willy Brandt's inner circle, venerated Brandt, and inadvertently caused his idol's downfall, Richard Thomas delivers more lines of narration than he would have read in voice-overs for a full season of The Waltons. Some of this narrative is pumped out to Arno Kretschmann, Günter's superior officer; some of it bestowed upon us — in huge chunks or in hasty asides in the middle of conversations.

Somehow, with Frayn's presentational wizardry and director Michael Blakemore's wily pacing, tension and interest are sustained. No fewer than 10 actors are sent scurrying across the two-story set amid electoral, diplomatic, and security crises — supplying additional levitation. When actual human dialogue takes place, Blakemore slows it to a crawl, keenly aware that we're parched for it, salivating over every word.

Thomas is perfection, energetic in his ordinariness, only mildly distressed that his place in history is parasitic. But the better you remember Willy Brandt, the more James Naughton will seem miscast in the role. Günter keeps telling us of Brandt's humble beginnings, his scrappy survival skills, and the silent eloquence of his simple gestures. Naughton radiates sophistication and urbanity, his visage is sculpted for Mount Rushmore, and the mellifluous rumble of his voice is instant oratory.

Still, Frayn's fascination with the phenomenology of history makes for compelling theater. I'm sure I would have savored it even more if I hadn't seen a similar formula at work in Copenhagen three times before.

Pacific Overtures (***) — East meets West in Sondheim's quaint, oddly proportioned musical ceremony with book by John Weidman. The culture clash is multifold. Sondheim's characteristic Sunday in the Park manner is wedded to delicate percussion-filled orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick. Act 1's music-dominated development is flavored like a decorous folktale. Then Act 2's book-dominated continuation (only four of the 12 songs are here) turns to biting satire.

All the while, we're taking a stylized look at the westernization of Japan, beginning with Commodore Matthew Perry's mission to Japan. Nobody in the island kingdom had seen a steamship before, so Sondheim's "Four Black Dragons," describing the first impression made by Perry's fleet, has the ring of historic truth. The fearful Commodore, with true American brashness and arrogance, ratchets up the islanders' consternation by insisting on dealing only with the Emperor's highest emissaries. After all, he has brought a letter from President Millard Fillmore addressed to the Emperor — and the Commodore's mission is to open trade with Japan.

He means business. So do the nations of Europe when the ceremonious Japanese finally devise a way to greet a filthy foreigner on their soil without losing face. The pivotal moment in the show comes at the start of Act 2 after America negotiates its trade treaty. French, Dutch, Russians, and British (in the style of Gilbert & Sullivan) quickly cross the previously inviolable water that surrounds the stage.

The silent hulk of a Commodore might as well be called the Commendatore from Don Giovanni — the monster we all remember from the movie version of Amadeus. Sondheim and Weidman show the West raping and ravaging Japan. But the all-Asian cast, helmed by the first-ever Japanese director of a Broadway show, get the satisfaction of taking revenge on their exploitive conquerors, ingesting their technology and building a dominant economic powerhouse.

B.D. Wong is outstanding as the Reciter. But too much of the evening dwells on the provinciality of Japan, scurrying around in panic as the Commodore lies anchored in Tokyo Bay. That leaves too little time to tap into Japan's rich culture, their resilience, and their strength. And too few satiric salvos against the Occident.

Dame Edna: Back With a Vengeance (***) — I had managed to steer almost totally clear of Dame Edna before my first live dose, reading lightly about Australian actor Barry Humphries' creation and skimming exactly one interview with milady. So I enjoyed myself immensely during my first exposure.

The tacky glasses, the silky lavender hair, and the dopey gladiolas were all new to me. These would all probably become less amusing if I had to swallow them nightly. But I love Dame Edna's magnanimous, patronizing cruelty, showered with equal glee upon President Bush and the clueless electorate who keep him in office. Fresh rations of insult were doled out to victims plucked out of the front rows for humiliation and, yes, to those poor old paupers who must content themselves with balcony seats.

Even more adorable was the delight people in the audience took to being insulted by her ladyship. There was a Montel Williams-Jerry Springer crassness to this appetite for public mortification. My favorite segment came when the erstwhile Everage took a young couple onstage and commiserated with them on the impending dissolution of their marriage.

Edna sustained this pretense even after she had the kids phone Mom in New Hampshire and the audience shouted hello to her. TV used to have such zany moments fairly frequently in the old days, so it was welcome to see such frolic finding refuge on Broadway.

A day after Christmas, Edna was still showing motherly concern for President Bush, suggesting gifts that might help him through his struggles. A word-a-day calendar could strengthen the boy's vocabulary. A world atlas could help him master geographical concepts beyond "abroad" and "overseas." Sweet.

'Night, Mother (**1/2) — The last night Jessie Cates spends at home is pretty much like the rest of her life: she makes plans but they don't work out. Before her suicide, she plans to give her mom Thelma a manicure and enjoy a cup of hot cocoa. The cocoa doesn't turn out to be satisfying, and there isn't enough time to do the manicure before Jessie is scheduled to pull the trigger.

Such is life, you say, but Jessie has leaped to the conclusion that nothing will ever work out for her. She wants to get off now before the train proceeds to a worse place. Thelma is horrified, angry, and guilty. Worst of all, she is physically powerless to stop her daughter from carrying out her suicide.

So she must convince Jessie that her life is worth prolonging — supply the reason for living that Jessie herself can't find. Or she must somehow demolish the reason Jessie has found for quitting on life.

Well, perhaps no one reason is sufficient either way. But Jessie's action might have been plausible enough if Edie Falco, of Sopranos fame, had animated her with some sort of mania, impulsiveness or instability. A more steely determination would have helped. Instead there's a gray serenity too rarely pierced by frustration, anger, or passion.

In her Broadway debut as Thelma, British actress Brenda Blethyn's accent wandered from the South to the Midwest and to parts unknown. But when she forgot about sounding American in the heat of the moment, unleashing a mother's primal plea for what was hers — her child! — I felt Blethyn ripping out pieces of my heart.

Maybe this wasn't the right time to revive such a bleak, despairing play. Or maybe back in 1983, playwright Marsha Norman gave Jessie one reason too many for her decision, namely her epilepsy. Watching Falco and Blethyn playing out their battle, I kept hearing a repellent suggestion that an epileptic's life wasn't worth living.

Whatever the reason, this revival gave up the ghost on January 9.

Off-Broadway

Doubt (****) — Cherry Jones is Sister Aloysius and Brian O'Byrne is Father Flynn in a classic struggle at a Catholic school between the Sister's dogmatic conviction and the Father's progressive compassion. Or is that compassion a smokescreen for child molestation? With priestly hanky-panky so much in the headlines these days, we're apt to jump on board the bandwagon with the Sister's suspicions even before there are solid facts powering it forward.

We're back in 1964, the early days of Pope Paul VI's reformist papacy — when women's powers as decision-makers are still nil. But it's Father Flynn who seems most transported by crusading zeal, reaching out to the first African-American to enroll at St. Nicholas school in the Bronx. In her nun's habit, Jones's zeal is prosecutorial. Her steely Aloysius presides in the principal's office more like a bird of prey than a mother hen, instantly elevating suspicion of Father Flynn to certainty.

To gather damning evidence against Flynn, Aloysius enlists Sister James. Still enraptured by her commitment to Christ, the young idealist finds the inquisition unsavory. Sister James is charmed and counseled by Flynn, a man who's more prone to see the virtues of remaining in doubt. "In pursuit of wrongdoing, one steps away from God," Sister Aloysius tells Sister James with chilling self-knowledge, still gung-ho on making the journey.

Additional surprises tighten the tension when the allegedly molested boy's mother is summoned for a conference in Sister's office — and we get our first scary inkling that the dogmatic Aloysius is no stranger to political and moral compromise. All of the cast is superb as this taut drama careens to its haunting denouement. But Jones is clearly the standout in one of the first great theater roles of the new century.

Bug (***3/4) — Agnes White's options are slim and grim from the moment we encounter her in Tracy Letts' apocalyptic thriller. Just released from prison, there's her hulking ex-husband Jerry Goss, who terrorizes her with silent phone calls before he arrives and punches her out.

That's the banal side of Agnes's life, and the brutality she suffers from Goss is a mere preamble to some of the most convincing fighting — and bloodletting — you'll ever see onstage. Peter Evans is a more exotic and mysterious proposition. He claims to be the victim of a diabolical government experiment whereby carnivorous aphids were implanted in his gums during a dental procedure — in preparation for loosing the microbes on Baghdad. In fact, Peter might be an escaped lunatic suffering from dangerous paranoid delusions. Or how about a combo, exploited by evil scientists and crazy?

Whatever the truth may be, the Feds are definitely on Peter's tail and closing in. Agnes chooses to believe in Peter, a telling indicator of just how banal her life is — and how desperate she is to escape to something more satisfying. Jim Jones and Guyana are always an airline ticket away.

Kate Buddeke heads this pitch-perfect cast as the beleaguered Agnes, with Michael Cullen magnificently menacing as Goss, and Joey Collins ambiguously cuddly, weasely, volatile, and catatonic as Peter. For those who are fearless and not squeamish, this is a 4-star evening of meaty suspense. I do have to make a small deduction, however, for toxicity. Agnes and Peter are constantly chain-smoking, and as my daughter noted when we first sat down, the place smells like Raid.

Yes, this is a true taste of Greenwich Village bohemia.

Lone Star Love (**3/4) — It's hard to resist this fun-loving, chili-flavored makeover of Shakespeare, subtitled The Merry Wives of Windsor, Texas. John L. Haber, with Tony Award-winner Jack Herrick supplying the songs, is often brilliant in transporting the lovable Elizabethan comedy to the post-Civil War era.

Still a rotund, lovable scamp, Sir John Falstaff is now the cowardly Sergeant John when we first encounter him in Bentonville, North Carolina. Not the only Tarheel connection, as we'll soon see. Sgt. Falstaff soon promotes himself to Colonel when the rebel cause is lost by scavenging his fallen comrade's jacket and cap. Then the roly-poly rapscallion, played by a hearty and heavily-padded Jay O. Sanders, heads westward with Pistol, Bardolph, and Nym — or as this trio of renegades is better known in Chapel Hill, the Red Clay Ramblers, headed by Herrick.

Fenton, played by velvet-voiced Clarke Thorell, is also ingeniously transformed, coming on to Miss Anne Page as "the yodeling cowboy." Extra voltage is injected into Falstaff's failed attempts at seducing Windsor's wives by the presence of Gary Sandy, whom you may recall from his stint on WKRP. Here he snarls husband Frank Ford's jealousy with whiplash force. Toss in the gospel-tinged song stylings of Harriet D. Foy as Miss Quickly, and you have a potent stew.

Michael Bogdanov, armed with impressive Shakespearean credentials, directs with disarming resourcefulness, turning the John Houseman Theater into a grungy roadhouse — festooned with Lone Star and Falstaff Beer signage. Before the show and at intermission, there's a hospitable barbecue at the Page Ranch. You can walk up onstage and dig into some cornbread, wieners, potato salad, a damn fine chili, and other vittles, served by Sandy and the rest of the cast. Or belly up to the bar for a hand of poker!

Lone Star has extended through February 6 — with ambitions that include an eventual transfer to Broadway. Before making that leap, I'd advise Haber & Herrick to hold their horses. The one lame aspect of their Shakespeare barbecue is the most obvious, the merry wives themselves. They're saddled with weepy country ballads and lack all the firewater that makes Falstaff, Fenton, Ford, and Miss Quickly so delightful.

Newsical (**) — Face it, America is starving for a dose of strong political satire. But this feeble spoof-a-thon by Rick Crom doesn't deliver the goods. Billed as a musicalized Daily Show, the sketches and parodies are hardly as fresh as the worst you might behold on Saturday Night Live.

Crom dutifully lampoons Michael Jackson and Martha Stewart, apparently lacking the intellect to realize that the media's obsession with these empty celebs is the true target to be abominated. You can't expect devastating thrusts at Dubya if you're dismissing Michael Moore as a paranoid crackpot. Or taking the usual cheap shots at Bill Clinton. Or sidestepping Iraq.

Blundering on with relentless energy, Crom does score some valid points. Barbra Streisand should perhaps shut up and sing, but Crom doesn't quit saying so while he's ahead. Better is the vivisection of Dr. Phil's macho bromides. "Your trouble," the pop guru advises a wimpering teenage girl, "is that you don't put out!"

But barbs aimed at Liza Minelli, the Homeland Security Color Code, and Arnold Schwarzenegger are pretty much stale on arrival. Nor has Newsical really lived up to its promise to refresh its material weekly. So what sounded stale to me on New Year's Eve is likely to sound staler to you.

White Chocolate (*1/2) — I was suckered by the hype for this Culture Project presentation, particularly the glowing John Simon review and the irresistible set-up. A wealthy Boston Brahmin, on the verge of winning the directorship of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, awakens on the morning the appointment is announced to discover a black man staring back at him in his bathroom mirror! To make matters worse, or better, Brandon Beale's savvy Jewish journalist wife awakens to an identical metamorphosis.

Reg E. Cathey is amazing as Brandon, seemingly disoriented in — and marveling at — his own black skin and funkiness. And yes, there are flecks of authentic yenta in luscious Lynn Whitfield's portrayal of Deborah Beale. But New Yorker cartoonist William Hamilton takes a disastrous wrong turn with his playscript almost as soon as he leaves the gate.

So we don't see the hypocrisies lurking beneath the shibboleths of armchair liberals. Nor do we savor the spectacle of cosmopolitan New Yorkers stripped of their smugness and exposed as the provincials they truly are.

Instead, the Beales are upstaged for the entire first act by Brandon's screwball sister Vivian, played with hyperventilating intensity by Gayton Scott. Nothing the black Beales can say shakes Vivian's conviction that the people standing before her are artful impersonators, commissioned to add spark to the celebration of Brandon's new directorship. So by the end of Act 1 — this is truly repulsive — Vivian has donned blackface to show her admiration and get into the party spirit.

The Beales' daughter Louise soon drops by with her Harvard-educated Asian fiancé, an extra surprise for Daddy. But Hamilton is determined to fumble three plots simultaneously, so he has Beale's rival for the museum post mosey in and form an instant liaison with Vivian. Erik Laray Harvey manages to overplay this slickster's salivating unctuousness so crudely that he and Vivian seem like an ideal couple — even though he's black!

Oy.

Opera

Kát'a Kabanová (***1/2) — Last season, she sizzled with a wicked wantonness — and a glint of madness — in the title role of Salome, becoming the toast of the town. With memories of that triumph still vivid in the viscera of opera lovers, Finnish soprano sensation Karita Mattila returned to the Metropolitan Opera as a pure forlorn luminescence in Leos Janácek's gloomy excursion to Russia in the 1860s. Once again, Mattila has proven to be regal and devastating, without baring so much as her wrist.

This is the story of a god-fearing, sensual woman who is tethered in marriage to Tichon Kabanová, a prominent merchant in a small town by the Volga River who should have cast off his mother's dominion years ago. But he dares not rouse Kabanisha's jealousy by fully returning Kát'a's love. So, egged on by Kabanicha's perky foster-daughter Varvara, she succumbs to the ardor of an educated neighbor who's nearly as repressed as Tichon.

Mattila finds all the starchiness, passion, upwelling sensuality, and religious rectitude that swirl inside Kát'a and forcefully flings it through the large Met hall. Just as importantly, conductor Jir' Belohlávek spurs the Met orchestra unerringly, giving full voice to all the brooding restlessness and the aching, aspiring rhapsody that lurks in the score.

Together, Mattila and Belohlávek perfectly express the inner scruples that bring Kát'a to ruin, gilding them with a brittle nobility. When she breaks down and confesses her adultery in public, there are notes of bravery, defiance, and recklessness to the declaration. And maybe we hear a tinge of madness, too, since Kát'a has realized that she has run from a stifling, humiliating situation straight into the arms of a sinful disgrace. With her paramour Boris skulking away to Moscow, her resolute decision to toss herself into the Volga is more than an escape. It's a cleansing expiation.

Before Kát'a succumbs to regrets, it's a joy to hear mezzo Magdalena Kozená giving Varvara a twinkle of mischief, harmonizing conspiratorially with Mattila. The men who love these vivacious beauties get little to sing from the composer that might earn them adoration in return. Raymond Very actually came off better as Varvara's beau than the shambling Jorma Silvasti as Boris, more awkward than ardent.

Judith Forst as Kabanicha and Vladimir Ognovenko as Dikoj, the drunken lecher who keeps Boris under his thumb, add perhaps a little more melodrama than Janácek intended when he based his libretto on Alexander Ostrovsky's The Storm. But melodramatic cruelty works nicely against Mattila's pure-white radiance. Their tawdry, secretive tryst is part of what makes life in the little town of Kalinov worth leaving.

Tales of Hoffman (***) — Jacques Offenbach was unquestionably among the most popular songwriters of his day, a key link in the development of the operetta. His impact lives on in dancehalls, opera houses, and the gaudiest palaces of Broadway. Watching his last unfinished opera at Lincoln Center, however, I couldn't help thinking that Tales of Hoffman is one of the sturdiest epics in the canon.

Three interconnected tales of the supernatural penned by E.T.A. Hoffman are framed in a worldly-wise tavern scene that layers on one last setback in Hoffman's eternal struggle to win the lasting love of an ideal woman. Offenbach's music is an inexhaustible fountain sweeping the stately design forward, rising occasionally to exultation and grandeur, sustained in sadness.

Certainly the Met production design heightens the perception of this opera's mighty scale. Whole scenes lift up breathtakingly into the rafters — or dip portentously down into the floor. But this season's performance tends to fragment the massive architecture.

We start off auspiciously with Aleksandra Kurzak as Olympia, the doll Hoffman falls in love with as a result of the cruel deceit of the mad scientist Coppélius. Whatever her coloratura lacks in polish, attacking the famous "Doll Song," she more than overcomes with her wide-eyed mechanical rigidity, the peak comedic delight of the evening. A promising debut, to be sure.

But Kurzak quickly disappears. Each of the three women in Hoffman's tales is played by a different singer, diluting the obsessiveness — and the hypnotic beauty — of the design. In contrast, James Morris played all three of the villains in the tales and Hoffman's nemesis at the tavern, steadily accumulating new menace and malevolence all evening long. The bass baritone was particularly diabolical as Dr. Miracle, exulting with a fiendish cackle.

Ramón Vargas moved about the stage with the proper energy as Hoffman and his ringing arias resonated with urgent, romantic aspiration. Worldliness and dissipation, however, seemed like foreign languages to our hero. In the final act, when he was supposed to be too besotted to consummate his assignation with Stella, the prima donna he adores, Vargas staggered around without displaying the slightest familiarity with drunkenness.

Buy this man a drink!

Ticketology 101

Ticket prices for Broadway and off-Broadway shows are higher than you'll see in Charlotte for locally produced efforts or even touring productions. I can recommend a couple of free discount avenues if you're considering a raid on Broadway.

Playbill.com and Theatermania.com are among the websites that offer free club memberships and a roster of discounts for a long list of New York shows. Or you can wait till you're up there and find the famed Times Square TKTS line on 47th Street. All but the hottest tickets go on sale at TKTS, usually for deeper discounts than you'll get online.

Another great avenue that links you online with TKTS, providing updates on which shows are "on the board," is Entertainment-Link.com. This site also provides info on how each show is selling and quickie numerical averages that tell you what the New York critics thought. And E-L gives you the option of buying tickets (after shelling out $12 for a subscription). Info about the plays isn't as authoritative as Playbill's, but it's the only website that offers seats for 700 Sundays — at premium prices that may make your scalp leap off your head.

Pssst! If you like dramas, you can avoid the long lines at TKTS and go to a special booth on 47th Street for non-musicals. Look at the big board showing the Broadway and off-Broadway titles currently discounted at TKTS. Wherever you see a "D" before the title, you can go directly to the special booth. Just don't expect the TKTS definition of non-musical to conform with anybody else's. On the day I looked, Lone Star Love sported a "D" and Dame Edna didn't. It pays to double-check before you stand in line. Especially when it's 18 degrees!