A New Opera Talks About Argentine Politics

Review: New opera explores the fraught history of Argentine politics Joshua Kosman February 19, 2024Updated: February 19, 2024, 3:48 pm “Corpus Evita,” at West Bay Opera, is centered on former Argentine President Juan Perón’s third wife, Isabel Perón, and her brief presidency in the mid-1970s. Photo: Otak Jump Eva Perón, the glamorous, short-lived second wife of Argentine President Juan Perón, remains the dominant icon for that country’s 20th century history. Since her death in 1952, she’s been the subject of veneration and revisionism, and served as the central figure of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s hit musical “Evita.” But no one has thought to put Perón’s third wife, Isabel, at the center of a theatrical work, until now. “Corpus Evita,” a 2000 opera by composer Carlos Franzetti and librettist José Luis Moscovich that serves as the season’s final production at West Bay Opera in Palo Alto, explores the dark, morally ambiguous tale of Isabel Perón’s brief presidency in the mid-1970s. It turns out to be fertile, if slippery, ground. Jessica Sandidge, left, and Casey Germain in “Corpus Evita” at West Bay Opera. Photo: Otak Jump The two-act opera doesn’t always hit its marks. The dramaturgy is often awkward, with scenes fading out rather than landing with a crisp impact. Franzetti, the composer of many film scores and the winner of five Latin Grammys, writes with inventive flair for the orchestra and less persuasively for the voice. Yet time and again, the matinee performance on Sunday, Feb. 18 at the Lucie Stern Theatre (the second in a four-performance run through Sunday, Feb. 25) left the audience captivated by the political and emotional ferment depicted onstage by the two Argentine-born artists. Isabel Perón, in Moscovich’s telling, was set up to fail. She came to politics as a naive young woman, selected by her husband — 35 years her senior — to try to recreate the political and populist magic that her predecessor had forged with miraculous ease. It was a task for which she was singularly ill-equipped. Anders Froehlich, left, and Patrick Bessenbacher in “Corpus Evita” at West Bay Opera. Photo: Otak Jump Isabel became both vice president and first lady just in time for her husband to die in office, making her the nation’s first female president and leaving the country at the mercy of the military leaders who would quickly oust her to usher in a barbarous era of repression and secret government killings. How complicit was she in what happened? Moscovich, who is West Bay Opera’s longtime general director, slices the question rather finely. Isabel Perón, still alive at 93 and living in luxurious exile in Spain, is given a poignant if not always persuasive opportunity to grieve the 30,000 victims of the generals’ reign of terror. At the same time, “Corpus Evita” is unflinching in its depiction of the regime’s crimes, which Moscovich witnessed as a youth. Sara LeMesh, left, and Patrick Bessenbacher in “Corpus Evita” at West Bay Opera. Photo: Otak Jump The opera’s emotional heart, though, is the tug-of-war between the long-dead Evita and the constantly overshadowed Isabel. (More than once, a listener is reminded of Hitchcock’s “Rebecca,” a treatment of similar themes.) Evita doesn’t just overpower Isabel with her popularity and ability to win over the masses. She literally outnumbers her onstage. The opera features two Evitas, the brightly charismatic figure seen in flashback (soprano Jessica Sandidge, in a sharp-edged, vibrant performance) and the reanimated corpse (mezzo-soprano Laure de Marcellus) who serves as a ghostly encapsulation of the Evita cult. Against those formidable adversaries, Isabel barely stands a chance, not even as embodied with vocal fervor and dramatic power by soprano Sara LeMesh. Patrick Bessenbacher, left, Sara LeMesh and Casey Germain in “Corpus Evita” at West Bay Opera. Photo: Otak Jump Isabel also has to contend with a pair of strong male adversaries posing as allies, her late husband (bass Casey Germain) and the Rasputin-like figure identified here only as “el Ministro” (tenor Patrick Bessenbacher, singing with fiery brilliance). In the opera’s most subtle and intricately wrought scene, the two men trade charges and commiseration over Isabel’s head, while she struggles to make her own position felt. Franzetti’s score, which Moscovich conducted, is a striking melange of illustrative directness and surprising stylistic choices. The wordless entr’acte depicting the torture and murder of Argentine dissidents is made all the more haunting by the churning, forceful music that accompanies it. Sudden bursts of waltz music or neo-Elizabethan strains prove to be a head-scratcher. The production, also directed by Moscovich, makes canny use of visual projections and close-packed staging. Sara LeMesh, left, and Patrick Bessenbacher in “Corpus Evita” at West Bay Opera. Photo: Otak Jump “Corpus Evita” concludes with a choral ode to the title character, as the Argentine population goes full steam into the creation of a cult around this venerated leader, and Isabel is promptly forgotten. Once again, the golden figure of the distant past — dimly recalled, imperfectly understood — obliterates the reality of the all-too-flawed present. Reach Joshua Kosman: jkosman@sfchronicle.com