By William R. Wineke
Special To Channel 3000

Elmer Gantry, the namesake of Sinclair Lewis's 1927 novel about a drunken, womanizing preacher and the slightly mystical female evangelist he promotes and seduces, is a character who never really goes out of style.

When the novel was published, the late Aimee Semple McPherson was gaining fame as founder of the Church of the Four Square Gospel and recreated as evangelist Sharon Falconer. The Gantry character finds new life in preachers throughout the decades, most recently in evangelist Jimmy Swaggart.

Gantry lives on in the novel, in a 1970 movie starring Burt Lancaster and Jean Simmons, and, now, in opera.

Robert Livingston Aldrich and Hershel Garfein collaborated to create “Elmer Gantry,” first staged in 2007 by the Nashville Opera and, for its Midwest premiere, the past weekend by Mllwaukee's Florentine Opera.

It is probably the first and, most likely, the last opera to feature as an aria the hymn "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."

The Florentine audience seemed of mixed mind about its success. There were a fair number of empty seats during the second act of Sunday's performance that had been filled during the first act.

But I liked it tremendously, partly because I have long been an Elmer Gantry fan and partly because the subject of charismatic religious figures and their downfalls caused by sexual improprieties and by greed strike me as apt metaphors for our current age.

Baritone Keith Phares sang the role of Elmer Gantry. He has a strong voice but his stage role lacked the charisma and all-round sleaziness that a true evangelist/con-man needs to be believable.

His real-life wife, soprano Patricia Risley, was far more believable as Sharon Falconer. She demonstrated the combination of almost delusional self-belief and female insecurity that characterized Lewis's character.

My personal favorite of the show, however, was bass-baritone Jamie Offenbach, who sang the role of J.T. Rigg, a businessman/promoter from the Zenith, Missouri Elks Club who raises money for Falconer's temple because he's pretty sure it will be good for Zenith business. It's a role Lewis also cast in the persona of George T. Babbit in a novel by the same name and Offenbach mastered the pompous ignorance of the Lewis character.

The staging of "Elmer Gantry" is the latest attempt by the Florentine to expand its repertoire. Next fall, the opera will open with a world premiere of Don Davis's "Rio de Sangre," the first opera sung in Spanish to be performed by the company.