The review from "The Daily Telegram," Adrian, Michigan:

ASO REVIEW

"Frankenstein" an easy sell

By Arlene Bachanov

Monday, November 18, 2002

ADRIAN -- When it comes to the cultural life of Adrian and Lenawee County, there have been a few times over the years when this area seems bigger than it really is, when Adrian becomes host to artistic events that could happen in any major city.

In its early years, opening night performances of OPERA!Lenawee was like that.

The Adrian Symphony Orchestra's Trestle Park concert several years ago -- when master of ceremonies Henry Newlin opened the performance by telling the audience, "Welcome to Tanglewood Adrian" -- was like that.

And Sunday's world premiere of a major musical work by two well-known local artists presented by the ASO was like that.

Michael and Betsy Lackey's "Frankenstein is no small piece of music by any measure.

The three-movement, fully orchestrated work, with four vocal parts, is 45 minutes long -- the length of an average symphony.

This is big-league stuff.  And it's amazing.

It tells Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's classic tale using four characters.  Singing the roles in the ASO performance were Douglas Webster as Victor, Cristin Mortenson as Elizabeth, and the Lackeys as Henry and Justine.

To hear in one performance all four of these talented singers, each with a long list of theatrical (even Broadway) credits to their name was a rare opportunity by itself.

The Lackeys' considerable vocal talents have been known here for a long time, and Webster and Mortenson were solid and satisfying.  And overall, the Lackeys, the ASO and music director John Dodson can be very pleased with how it all came together onstage.

As "Frankenstein" was originally conceived -- and the way it was written when an ASO audience heard the first movement a couple of seasons ago -- it was an impressive piece.

But now, thanks to the Lackeys taking some valuable advice from Dodson, it's even better.  Scaled down to four singers instead of six, and with the chorus of the original concept gone, the story is tighter and it's a much better package.

Bringing a story to the stage when the audience has to be able to picture what's going on instead of having it acted out for them, is tough to do.  Only in one spot did the performance fall a little short in that respect; in the third movement Victor shoots Elizabeth, and it took a few measures to figure out what had happened.

But that's not a flaw in the performance; it was an error in the playing.  If a percussionist had not missed a cue and the audience had heard the sound of a gunshot, it would have made complete sense.

In fact, Jerry DePuit's orchestration is as remarkable as the piece itself.  When the mood is joyful, you hear it in violins and brass.  When there's snowfall or rain, you hear the precipitation -- the snow sounds completely different than the rain.  When Victor tells Henry to follow him up the stairs, their ascent is clear.

Between Betsy Lackey's music, Michael Lackey's lyrics, and DePuit's orchestration, this is an elegantly written and very complete piece.  There's not a note in the score that doesn't sound as though it belongs, and the story is well-told.

Now, the Lackeys hope to be able to convince other orchestras to present their work.  It shouldn't be a hard sell.