Associated Press

Carl Hartman - March 10, 2004

WASHINGTON -- "Volpone," an opera having its world debut in Washington, is based on a 400-year-old satire about an evil miser, has a character who wears sunglasses and has music inspired by medieval chants, French baroque overtures and Hollywood films.

OK, says librettist Mark Campbell, it's "unfaithfully based" on the Ben Jonson satire.

In their day, Jonson was a friend, critic and the most successful rival of William Shakespeare.

His story for the opera, which opens a three-performance run Wednesday, deals with the evil greed of the miser Volpone his prospective heirs. Campbell and his composer, John Musto, have given it features of both traditional comic opera and Broadway musical.

The title role, a bass-baritone part, is taken by Joshua Winograde, who recently played the high priest Sarastro in the Houston Opera's production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "The Magic Flute."

"The music for Volpone was inspired by all the medieval plain chants, French baroque overtures, rigorous fugues, music-hall numbers, Hollywood love duets, blues, soft-shoes, cartoon chases, rhumbas and barbershop quartets I've ever heard or played," said Musto, 49.

Originally laid in Venice in Jonson's time, the opera's costumes and sets hint at several periods. A character wears 20th century dark glasses to make him look sinister. Other characters wear what looks like outfits of the 1800s.

Although the characters have the Italian-sounding names that Jonson gave them, same have had their sex changed, and one important new woman's part has been created.

"We needed more female voices," Campbell explained.

The libretto is rhymed, to accommodate tunes. Campbell could not recall anything that remains of Jonson's blank verse, which would be difficult for today's audiences to follow.

A happy ending has been added.

"Jonson lived in puritanical times, and everyone had to get his just deserts," Campbell said.

A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, with degrees in performance, composer Musto said he never studied composition formally. In 2001, he won both a CINE Golden Eagle for his film music and the commission for his first opera from the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts.

Volpone will be performed three times at the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Va., outside the nation's capital.

The last full-scale opera to have its world premiere in Washington was Dominick Argento's "The Dream of Valentino" in 1994.