Opera Maine's Memorable Three Decembers

Just returned from OperaMaine's production of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer's chamber opera, "Three Decembers." As I wrote ten years ago of the broadcast premiere of the 2008 revision, the negative reviews of that event made little sense to me:

". . . ungrateful music that lies awkwardly" for the voice” . . . “a score that while threatening to break into melody - never really does."

The music sits in the "sweet spot" for many singers, so “ungrateful” and "awkward" seems odd word choices to describe it. As to melody(ies), the score is virtually bursting with so many lending more of a musical theatre feel to it than an opera. There are (intentional or not) moments that, while not derivative, recall Menotti's early efforts, Bernstein and Sondheim. This is a good thing.

As with the Houston premiere, Portland’ audience was engaged and responsive throughout.

Scheer’s libretto – drawn from an unpublished play, tells the story of a mother and her difficult relationship with her two adult children from 1986 through 2006. A daughter, trapped in a miserable marriage she’s emotionally unequipped to exit; and a gay son, whose partner is dying from complications from AIDS. While these three wrestle with enormous emotions and guilt, there is never any doubt of the love that exists between them, and that they yearn for throughout those years. What on paper sounds like a Lifetime movie, onstage transforms into a compelling, powerful and sometimes funny tale.

Set in intimacy of the St. Lawrence Arts Center, John Sundling's bare bones production – a few props and enormous marquee-style lit up numerals: "1986" "1996" and "2006" identifying and effectively shrinking the stage each scene was a terrific effect, pulling the audience right into the performance. There were moments I couldn’t help thinking of Sondheim’s “Follies.” Likewise, Richard Gammon's direction elicited direct, no-nonsense acting from his cast that breathed theatrical life into this small, high strung and emotionally damaged family making them, for 90 some minutes, real in every sense. It didn’t hurt that Gammon was blessed with a cast that made absolute magic with Heggie’s Broadway-esque score.

As acclaimed actress, Madeline Mitchell, mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis gave a genuine, larger-than-life tour-de-force, her beautiful, expressive face lighting up with stage smiles belying the frightened, hard-as-nails mother, desperate for attention and torn apart by hiding a damaging secret from her children throughout their lives. Vocally, Bryce-Davis has a rich, warm, expressive voice, even throughout all registers top-to-bottom. This is a beautiful singer well on her way to an international career. (Note: following this run, Ms. Bryce-Davis jets back to Antwerp where she is a member of the Opera Vlaanderen, for role debuts in Glass's "Satyagraha" and Eboli in "Don Carlos"). She's also one hell of an actress.

Soprano Symone Harcum was daughter Beatrice, and soared through Heggie's higher-lying music with ease and beautiful, lustrous tone. She softened what I felt was (in the original performances) a difficult-to-love, emotionally character and had the audience's sympathies early on.

As son and brother Charlie, Yazid Gray was every bit the equal of his mom and sister. A beautifully produced baritone and touchingly effective actor, Gray brought Charlie's grief and resentment to life without presenting a character that could easily morph into the maudlin. That line was never crossed and Gray’s Charlie seemed to be both balance and anchor of the family.

Music Director Timothy Steele had the difficult task of playing a single piano reduction of the score which did not allow always for nuances that a full ensemble would have provided. But jeez, did he play it brilliantly, and held the entire work together in a most admirable performance.

Interestingly, surtitles were provided for the performance, but they were never needed because of the amazing clarity of diction from the cast, I'm not certain a single pair of eyes ever looked up. How could we? We couldn't take our eyes off the stage.

We don't get a lot of contemporary opera in Maine, so "Three Decembers" was a most welcome gift from Opera Maine. More please!

Moby Dick: Great American Novel Becomes a Worthy Opera

Having done well in a handful of productions since its world premiere, last night's offering on Great Performances will hopefully prove Jake Heggie's new opera, Moby Dick to be an instant American operatic classic.

Robert Brill's physical production, filmed live from the San Francisco Opera, features state-of-the-art technology (lighting, projections, etc.) to seamlessly move the opera's scenes deftly and, not infrequently, adding a little "awe" power for the audience. But the show is not about effects, but rather about epic storytelling through music and the effects and stage designs are simply the very elaborate platform for an overwhelming operatic treatment of one of our great, classic tales.

Heggie's score has moments that recall Britten (strongly) as well as other composers, yet, having heard most of his music to date, stands on its own offering a stamp of recognizable individuality. There were snippets and melodies of things that I "thought" I knew, but were (much like Humperdinck with his Hansel und Gretel) wholly original - yet undeniably familiar. That's a nice gift.

The individual performances are, to a one, exemplary and the commitment each singer brings to his or her role is commendable and clear. Jay Hunter Morris stepped into some big shoes (Ben Heppner was the celebrated, original Ahab) and does so admirably. With a brighter, more pointed sound and less sweetness of tone than Heppner, Morris presents a different Ahab, no less formidable and his madness is, at times, appropriately unnerving, though this seems to come more from seeing than hearing him.

Each of Ahab's crew members are immediately likable, each earning our sympathies, none, so much (for this viewer) as Stephen Costello's Greenhorn. Costello's attractive, tightly wound vibrato imbues Greenhorn with the innocent melancholy of an orphan . . . an outsider, his growing attachment to the "savage" Queequeg, and the friendship that ensues between this pair of loners is infinitely touching.

Greenhorn's "realization" aria following the rescue of Pip elevates this simple soul into another realm. His duet with Queequeg which opens Act 2, is one of the opera's emotional and musical highlights. As Queequeg, Jonathan Lemalus is non plus ultra and will surely be a tough act to follow for future singers of the role. Possessed of a Samoan/Polynesian island physicality, and elaborately tattooed from the face down, Lemalu's savage is truly noble, in many ways, the most thoughtful and honest of the Pequod's shipmates.

Talise Trevigne's clear, high flying soprano and impish size make her perfect as Pip the cabin boy (and she gets to fly) Morgan Smith's Starbuck is, likewise, just about perfect, his great aria closing Act 1 revealing his torturous moral dilemma of how to save his shipmates from Ahab the Mad. The "home" duet for Starbuck and Ahab is a grand one pulling each man in several directions, before driving the opera to its mighty conclusion. Heggie pulls out all the stops here, the music swaying between the sentimentality and the madness of Ahab's pursuit of the Great White.

Patrick Summers leads the San Francisco forces with assurance, driving the music furiously through its dramatic, stormy scenes while allowing his singers plenty of room for lyrical expansion - which Heggie, thankfully offers the men and boys of the Pequod, aplenty.

The DVD/BluRay set finds the opera - a bit more than was captured for PBS (including a curtain call, albeit abbreviated and rushed clumsily), onto a single disc, with a second, hour long DVD featuring interviews with the cast, Messrs Heggie, Summers and Scheer. It also has a breathtaking (literally), fascinating time-lapse video condensing a roughly 24 hour period of the War Memorial Stage as it transforms from Lohengrin, to Moby Dick, Lohengrin again, then Tosca.

I was happy to learn that after 5 or 6 productions so far, "Moby Dick" will be playing at even more companies in the upcoming years - a promising sign.