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The generally positive press and public reception of Schoenberg's "Moses und Aron" in its Met debut (seen Feb. 23) gives the lie to the work's reputation as a knotty, inscrutable masterpiece. With translated titles, it engaged, even fascinated, the public. "Moses" is not unknown here, having been mounted by New York City Opera a few seasons back. Recordings are available, but "Moses" is theatrical and needs to be seen. The visual options are various. Schoenberg's own scenario is specific, literal, old-fashioned. NYCO and the Met chose sparse, abstract concepts that look more the way the music sounds.

Graham Vick's Met production - all of a piece with Paul Brown's designs, Ron Howell's choreography and Thomas Webster's lighting - works best in its simplest tableaux. Schoenberg portrays Moses as a victim of permanent depression. The [first] image of Moses on the undulating desert, approaching the strikingly simple image of the Burning Bush, finds its echo in the opera's closing moments, when Moses has broken the tablets and despairs of his mission. He started out saying he couldn't do the job, and events proved him right. Meanwhile, struggling to articulate his concept of God, he has been frustrated by the slippery adaptability of his brother, Aron. Aron and Moses personify the classic fox/hedgehog dichotomy: the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

Depravity, as anyone knows who has had to sit through the Venusberg scene in "Tannh?user," is just about impossible to depict onstage without eliciting laughter. Vick's production updates the Golden Calf orgy to the era of "Cabaret," when Schoenberg was working on "Moses." Certainly the cynicism, materialism and political disorganization of Central Europe between World Wars offers a natural corollary, but Howell's choreography can sustain the mood only by resorting to strenuous acrobatics, with an hygienic effect on the intended sensuality: these people are leaping around too much to enjoy themselves, or to titillate anyone else. Toward the end of the scene, when Schoenberg asks for languorous exhaustion, the production is unable to suggest anything so pleasant. The crew of dancers, however, rates an A for Athletic.

John Tomlinson's Moses, with its tone of sad yearning, compassed the epic emotions of the role, sidestepping its central problem: Schoenberg never gives Moses (as Rossini did) the force and charisma of a great leader. Philip Langridge, artful rather than merely glib, took advantage of better opportunities to show how Aron's snake-oil pitch got people to listen. The interplay between the two brothers worked well throughout. So did vivid vignettes from Sergei Koptchak as a Priest, Matthew Polenzani as a Youth, Gregory Turay as a Young Man, Jennifer Welch as a Young Girl, William Stone as a Man and Ellen Rabiner as a Sick Woman.

Moses and Aron is the Opera from Hell for a chorus, and if the Met's choral forces didn't always carry the ring of total assurance in thrusting their music forward, they certainly had mastered their assignment. Given the size of the house and depth of the pit, James Levine led a rather laid-back interpretation, favoring a natural blend of orchestral detail and texture rather than highlighting, jazzing up or "teaching" the score. That is, he treated "Moses und Aron" as an accepted classic, which is how he sees it. If audience enthusiasm is any measure, he proved his point.

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