To capture the outlandish subject of Schoenberg in Hollywood, it takes an opera

There is simply a tiny and intriguingly idiosyncratic sub-genre of operas astir composers. Something is ever up erstwhile 1 composer deals with different composer’s beingness and music.

Subjects person included Carlo Gesualdo, the 16th period madrigalist who murdered his woman and her lover. César Franck and others got a footwear retired of Alessandro Stradella, the Baroque opera composer who attempted to embezzle the Roman Catholic Church. Rimsky-Korsakov turned to Mozart and Salieri.

In the fall, Los Angeles Opera volition premiere Sarah Kirkland Snider’s “Hildegard,” astir the Medieval mystic Hildegard of Bingen. In the meantime, UCLA presented the West Coast premiere Sunday of Tod Machover’s “Schoenberg successful Hollywood” astatine the Nimoy Theater, with performances done Thursday.

Omar Ebrahim arsenic Schoenberg and conductor Neal Stulberg successful Tod Machover’s “Schoenberg successful Hollywood” astatine UCLA Nimoy Theater.

(Taso Papadakis / UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music)

Machover, who directs the Opera of the Future radical astatine MIT’s Media Lab, says helium was drawn to the thought aft helium learned astir the singular 1935 gathering of Schoenberg and MGM shaper Irving Thalberg astir scoring “The Good Earth.” The uncompromising German inventor of the 12-tone strategy had conscionable fled Nazi Germany, and the gathering became a conflict of precocious creation and entertainment.

Schoenberg and the movies yet went successful their autarkic directions, but the composer did go profoundly integrated successful L.A. culture, surviving crossed the thoroughfare successful Brentwood from Shirley Temple, teaching astatine USC and UCLA, playing tennis with George Gershwin (whom helium adored), feuding with neighbour Thomas Mann (who opposed Schoenberg’s innovations) and hanging retired with the Marx Brothers and Charlie Chaplin.

Machover’s opera begins and ends with Thalberg arsenic a framing devise. The 90-minute opera is fundamentally a phantasmagoria of however Schoenberg got here.

The superb libretto by Simon Robson (based connected a script by Braham Murray) is simply a clever bid of abbreviated flashbacks of Schoenberg’s life, with movie accompaniment. Some are realistic, immoderate fanciful. The 3 characters are Schoenberg, Boy and Girl. Boy and Girl correspond each the characters successful Schoenberg’s beingness with galore a virtuosic costume change. We witnesser Schoenberg, who was calved 150 years ago, starting retired arsenic a cellist and self-taught progressive composer successful his autochthonal Vienna and Berlin. He flees the Nazis and, via Paris, Boston and New York, yet settles successful Los Angeles successful 1934, wherever helium remains for the remainder of his life.

Moving scenes uncover his idiosyncratic beingness and its connections with his music, but arsenic helium reaches the New World wacky ones statesman to creep in. He becomes Groucho and SuperJew. The films, which are cued arsenic though philharmonic elements, tally the gamut of cinematic styles and periods. They see historical documentary scenes, modern enactments, cartoons and graphics.

Machover’s people for 15 instruments is its ain analyzable delirium. An intolerable composer to pin down, Machover has written a accepted expansive opera specified arsenic “Resurrection,” based connected Tolstoy’s novel, and “Brain Opera,” which is conscionable that, utilizing electrodes connected your noggin. A trained cellist, he’s comfy with acoustic instruments but besides can’t hold to get his hands connected immoderate brainsick invention the Media Lab’s irrepressible tech visionaries travel up with next.

Musically and dramatically, “Schoenberg successful Hollywood” has Schoenbergian denseness on with new-world electronics. Machover is peculiarly effectual successful evoking some the trauma and the exhilaration successful Schoenberg’s spiritual advancement arsenic helium reinvents himself aft horrors of World War I, successful which helium fought, and again erstwhile confronted with caller horrors of World War II.

The commanding show by the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music ensemble, conducted by Neal Stulberg, makes the high/low dichotomy irrelevant, starring america to a profound mediate ground. Choreographer Karole Armitage, who bases the Nimoy accumulation connected the archetypal 1 she created for Boston Lyric, operates, however, connected extremes. Schoenberg comes crossed arsenic either self-knowing prophet oregon goofball. Whimsy and wit go silly. Marx Brothers, Wild West and SuperJew stagings are saved lone by the music.

Omar Ebrahim’s imposing and magnificently sung Schoenberg is well-suited for visionary gravitas, little truthful for slapstick. Anna Davidson and Jon Lee Keenan, arsenic Girl and Boy, crook connected a dime. They determination with dancers’ ease, allowing Armitage to make a consciousness of travel successful the episodic opera. They tin bash silly, but besides a batch more. Davidson was peculiarly gripping arsenic Schoenberg’s archetypal wife, Mathilde.

In immoderate ways, Armitage seemed to beryllium compensating for the small, bare Nimoy stage. Schoenberg nary uncertainty attended movies successful what is present the Nimoy, which was a movie theatre until its caller renovation arsenic a performing abstraction for UCLA. It is an intimate space, which meant that Armitage had to bash without decor, and which whitethorn person led her to overemphasize theatrics.

Amplification added a complication. The dependable signifier was excessively large for vocal subtleties and excessively level for cautious instrumental and physics euphony balance.

Still, Schoenberg would not beryllium Schoenberg without obstacles to person triumphantly overcome. He changed euphony successful Vienna and Berlin. He thrived successful L.A. arsenic composer, teacher and inspiration, fitting successful arsenic helium needed to. He remained existent to his (12-tone) schoolhouse but also, erstwhile it pleased him, went rogue. Schoenberg adjacent wrote a terrific MGM-style Hollywood Bowl fanfare that for nary bully crushed ne'er gets played.

Could “Schoenberg successful Hollywood” beryllium a wake-up call? Shockingly, Schoenberg remains starless connected the Hollywood Walk of Fame.