Benvenuto Cellini, Berlioz regia Andrei Serban, cronica din The New York Times

Since its troubled premiere at the Paris Opera in 1838, Berlioz's ''Benvenuto Cellini'' has intrigued and befuddled opera companies, stage directors and audiences. It's a curious work -- call it an epic historical comedy -- that exists in several conflicting versions. And it either boldly or confusingly (depending upon your perspective) juxtaposes diverse operatic styles in trying to tell the story of Cellini, the 16th-century Italian sculptor, goldsmith, miscreant and self-aggrandizing memoirist.
Many conductors enormously respect the score, which abounds with inventive and engaging music. But over the years not many companies have stepped up to produce it. I've encountered the work only twice: the 1975 American premiere by the Opera Company of Boston under Sarah Caldwell with Jon Vickers in the title role, and on Thursday night at the Metropolitan Opera.
It was the opening of the company's first production ever, by the director Andrei Serban in his Met debut, with James Levine conducting and the tenor Marcello Giordani in the title role. This is the second installment of the Met's celebration of the 200th anniversary of Berlioz's birth, the first being ''Les Troyens'' last spring.
Mr. Serban's production crowds the stage with dancers, extras, surreal props and more commedia dell'arte antics than you would have thought possible to fit into a night at the opera. When he and the production team, including the set designer George Tsypin and the costume designer Georgi Alexi-Meskhishvili, took their joint curtain call, they were greeted by a mixed chorus of lusty boos and ardent bravos, which essentially encapsulated my own reactions.
The clumsy plot focuses on a breakthrough moment in Cellini's life, when he was about to cast the monumental statue of Perseus with the severed head of Medusa. In the opera, Pope Clement VII has commissioned the work over the opposition of his scheming Vatican treasurer, Balducci, who favors a mediocrity, the sculptor Fieramosca, whom he plans to marry to his lovely young daughter, Teresa. But Teresa is smitten with Cellini. The ensuing story tells of Cellini's attempt to hoodwink Balducci, win Teresa, secure a pardon for inadvertently stabbing a monk at a brawl -- and cast his statue, a feat he pulls off in the triumphant final scene.
Berlioz extracted his popular ''Roman Carnival Overture,'' from portions of ''Benvenuto Cellini,'' which takes place in Rome during revels for Shrove Monday, and Mr. Serban's production is like a three-ring circus.
The set is dominated by a huge, rotating, semicircular house of translucent marble with twin twisting staircases. Scaffolding and ladders lean against the inside walls, bringing to mind those Renaissance paintings in which ladders symbolize the arduous route to heaven.
A constant swarm of commedia dell'arte characters flit across the stage and poke out of windows. In a heavy-handed touch, Berlioz, in the person of a red-haired, lanky man in a 19th-century waistcoat, wanders about the stage observing the action and jotting down notes.
In his Met debut, the choreographer Nikolaus Wolcz has devised some stylized, jerky movements for a roster of brawny men who portray Cellini's fellow metalworkers. At one point two Adonislike youths appear wielding swords and wearing nothing but fig leaves: idealized apparitions of Perseus and Medusa? It may not have made sense, but you can bet that for about 10 minutes most people in the house were not paying much attention to their Met Titles.
Still, however fanciful or alluring the antics and images, there is just too much going on. Apparently the staging was even more cluttered before Mr. Serban was prevailed upon by the Met to thin things out a bit.
His work stood in contrast to Mr. Levine's, who captured the score's high spirits but also its subtlety, tenderness and grandeur. The music constantly surprises you with its shifting meters, elusive rhythms and roving harmonies.
Even the comedic bits are often delicate and graceful, for example, the gossamer trio in the first scene, sung by Cellini, Teresa and the hidden Fieramosca. Would that more of those qualities had been reflected in the staging.