Elizabeth – Last Friday we hopped on the afternoon Acela to DC to check out Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative present three new 20 minute operas at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Now in its third year, the goal of the program is to train librettists and composers and prepare them to create full-length operas, something few institutions do, Francesca Zambello, Artistic Director of WNO, noted in the Q and A after the performances.
The American Opera Initiative this year selected three composers and librettists that the mentors of the program matched up into teams. The mentors–conductor Anne Manson, composer Jake Heggie, and librettist Mark Campbell–then worked with the teams over the course of ten months.
The main parameters given to the composer/librettist teams were that the subject matter be an American story, topic, theme or myth. Guidelines were also set as to number of singers and musicians. The teams came up with uniquely modern American stories, not ones I am used to seeing on an opera stage. The Investment, by composer John Liberatore and librettist Niloufar Talebi, told the story of a wealthy Iranian-American couple, the Mohems, living in Silicon Valley who invite a young Iranian-American painter to their house after purchasing one of her large paintings. When it emerges that the painting was a memorial to her mother and her mother’s favorite Iranian poet, the husband is irate as he sees the poet as a traitor to Persian culture. Wei Wu, part of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, stood out for his rich bass in the part of Mr. Mohem.
Next was American Manby composer Rene Orth and librettist Jason Kim. This serious piece was about a rising political star coming home for his estranged father’s funeral, along with other motives that include destroying evidence of his father’s troublesome past. When his sister implores him to rejoin the family he gets caught being his ambition and doing the right thing. Orth used recurrent undertones of presidential pomp and circumstance and other familiar American musical themes which helped to ground and navigate the audience between the two positions. The storyline was a little hard to follow at points and I appreciated the music’s guidance in telling the story.
The final opera of the evening was a comic horror love story opera Daughters of the Bloody Duke by composer Jake Runestad and librettist David Johnston. Forty daughters of the Bloody Duke are to marry the forty sons of De Quincey and kill the young men on their wedding nights. The only problem is one of the daughters, Margot Craven, falls in love with the son she marries and her grandmother rises from the dead to chastise her and tell her not to kill her husband. As her sisters commence the murders and her husband snores, Margot vacillates over killing him while her grandmother admonishes her. Deborah Nansteel as the grandmother was terrific. And Runestad’s melodies and lush music had me humming them long after we left the Kennedy Center. I loved David Johnston’s libretto and that his action was placed in the present day with today’s vernacular and slang. I wished this team’s opera was longer—so refreshing to have such humor infused into what most think of as a serious genre.My friend joined us and the American Opera Initiative were her first operas; I think this is the perfect experience for someone not ready to commit to three hours (plus) that most operas are and yet get a sense of the genre. And it even had a taste of the glamour that some operas have as supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was in attendance and even better was a man dressed to the nines complete with top hat and red velvet tie and cummerbund.
Shawn – Last Friday we schlepped down to DC, (via Amtrak–don’t even get me started on Amtrak) to see Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative Three 20 Minute Opera program.
In the Playbill, WNO Artistic Director Francesca Zambello states the American Opera Initiative commissions 20-minute pieces to allow composers to work up to one-hour pieces so eventually they can, hopefully, be commissioned for full length operas. So far, the AOI has commissioned nine 20-minute works and three one-hour works, all in pursuit of new full-length American operas. The AOI’s next one hour opera, Penny, was born of the 20-minute program and premieres January 2015 at WNO.
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| The Librettists and Composers of AOI with mentor Mark Campbell |
I was very interested in what the three young librettist/composer teams would come up with especially as Jake Heggie and Mark Campbell are the mentors for the AOI. Jake Heggie is the composer of Moby Dick and Dead Man Walking and Mark Campbell is the librettist of As One, and the upcoming The Manchurian Candidate by composer Kevin Puts and The Shining by Paul Moravec, both for Minnesota Opera. For the premiere of Campbell and Moravec’s The Shining in May 2016, I may actually go to St Paul, MN to see it. Which speaks volumes as to my interest.
The three 20-minute works were The Investment by librettist Niloufar Talebi and composer John Liberatore, An American Man by librettist Jason Kim and composer Rene Orth and Daughters of the Bloody Duke by librettist David Johnston and composer Jake Runestad.
Of the first two, An American Man did manage to generate some real drama but ultimately overused Americana musical melodies, which pulled me out of the show. The Presidential musical themes kept feeling like a wink from the composer. Which can work, just not so often. One quarter as much would have been far more effective.
Although the singers were competent, (all, save baritone Andrew McLaughlin, are either graduates or current members of Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program), by far my favorite thing in the first two short operas was mezzo Aleksandra Romano. She stayed on the breath and on her body the entire time; I was able to hear her evenly and clearly. Some of the other young singers went in and out of resonance, making it difficult to hear them even in the smaller 513 seat Terrace Theatre at the Kennedy Center.
My favorite piece came last. Daughters of the Bloody Duke by librettist David Johnston and composer Jake Runestad is a kind of gothic, camp, horror, romantic comedy operetta.
Johnston’s libretto is like an operatic Brothers Grim fairy tale as if done by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, which is just the jolt opera needs right now. It is exotic yet familiar, classic yet contemporary, bizarre yet accessible and vital. All that and with a pinch of William Burroughs, which all good things need in my estimation.
It was also truly funny. What a delight to hear actual full on laughter from an opera audience instead of the polite on cue tittering that so often passes for laughter at the Met.
Runestad cleverly employed multiple musical melodies, while still maintaining a consistent through line for the piece. Therefore it never lost its sense of cohesion no matter how eclectic and varied the score. A truly fun and engaging listen.
Keep on an eye on these two both together and separately.
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| Francesca Zambello |
Johnston has the premiere of his new one act opera with composer Jeffrey Dennis Smith, Why is Eartha Kitt Trying to Kill Me on January 11th at Galapagos Art Space. Jake Runestad has a variety of upcoming events all over US and the world.
I particularly enjoyed notorious tough cookie and Washington National Opera Head Francesca Zambello’s hardcore onstage hosting of the post show Q&A. She actually cut several questioners from the audience off when they went on too long with “Is there a question in there somewhere? No? Next.”
All this while clutching her lovely black leather purse, as if in preparation to smack an unruly audience member with it. She rocks. And it’s great to see someone investing in the future of original American opera. At any length.
-Elizabeth Frayer & Shawn E Milnes
Photos by Scott Suchman for WNO
Related Links:
Inside the Metropolitan Opera’s Insane Year
Cancellations and Opera Cosplay: The Richard Tucker Foundation Gala 2014
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