Three Operas

In the past three months I’ve been involved in the productions of three operas, in three cities, in three states.  Sometimes it is difficult to argue the relevance of opera to our daily lives, and often more difficult to argue the relevance of particular operas to our Christian lives.  What follows, however, are reflections on three particular opera productions, in three particular settings.

Immediately upon my return from Shanghai this summer, I went to El Paso, Texas to work on El Paso Opera’s September production of Verdi’s Aida.  (Images of elephants are usually the first association we have with Aida.   Unfortunately, Kimba, the elephant which had starred in EPO’s previous production of the opera several years ago, had other bookings and was thus unavailable.  Bringing a new “star” in from Los Angeles, by train, would have cost $20,000.)  So we contented ourselves with ”noble steeds” for the Triumphal Scene.

It is difficult to escape the influence of religion on the Aida story.  So much of the conflict between Amneris and Aida is exacerbated by the high priest, Ramphis’ declarations of “death and destruction” to the infidels.  Although the drama ends, as most popular  tragedies do, with the violent death of the protagonists, in the second act clemency is offered to the war captives by the Ethiopian king. 

 From El Paso and Aida I went to Chicago and Chamber Opera Chicago’s production of “A Menotti Tribute” mounted in honor of Gian Carlo Menotti, who died earlier this year.  Menotti’s adopted son, Francis Menotti, joined us as stage director as we presented scenes from Maria Golovin, The Last Savage and Goya as well as from Menotti’s more well-known works, such as The Medium, The Consul and Amahl and the Night Visitors. 

A tribute such as this is ”all about” organizing the many performers involved in casting the various works (25 singers in this case), putting together production schedules that take into account everyone’s oprofessional obligations, developing scenery which can suggest differing settings with one or two set pieces and helping instrumentalists organize a stack of excerpts and parts.  Then it is about developing an emotional “through line” which helps the audience take an emotional journey from the comical self-absorbtion of Miss Todd and Miss Pinkerton (in The Old Maid and the Thief) through the tensions of Baba’s disintegrating personality (in The Medium)  into the visceral pain and desperation of Magda, caught in the vagaries of an immigration bureaucracy (in The Consul) to the children’s musical defense against the Martians in Help, Help, the Globolinks.  

The evening ended with the final scene from the Saint of Bleecker Street and Anina’s taking of Holy Vows immediately before her death.  Rooted as it is in the faith of the Catholic Church, the Saint of Bleecker Street is perhaps Menotti’s finest, most sincere and most powerful work. 

From Chicago, I went to Colorado State University to conduct a performance of Benjamin Britten’s Rape of Lucretia.  One cannot complain about the opportunity to be in Fort Collins, Colorado for two weeks in “peak color” season.   

The power struggle between the Etruscans and the Romans, depicted through the rape of Collatinus’ wife Lucretia is a difficult and oppressive topic.   Since the production was performed by full-time students of Colorado State, we rehearsed once a day, in the evenings.  We all needed and used the respite of the day to “walk away from” the darkness and anger and violence of the story of one man’s domination of a woman and one society’s domination of another.

Britten was criticized for framing the story of Lucretia’s rape (set many years Before Christ) in a Christian setting (provided by the “commentary” of Male and Female Chorus throughout the opera).   Some in the audience experienced this Christian frame as an irritating and irrelevant”add-on” while others experienced it as a merciful, reassuring, edifying “context” for the violence depicted in the opera.   The cast and I found, however, that we were dependent on the catharsis provided by Male Chorus’ proclamation of forgiveness and goodness and light at the close of each day’s rehearsls. 

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