Edward Thomas
      Desire under the Elms

* Jerry Hadley (Eben)
* James Morris (Cabot)
* Victoria Livengood (Abbie)

London Symphony Orchestra/George Manahan
Naxos 8.669001-02 {DDD} TT: 125:50

Summary for the Busy Executive: Mostly harmless.

This is unfair, but, you know, when I looked at the cover of this 2-CD
set and saw the words "American Opera Classics," I immediately responded,
"Yeah, right."  If we take the term "classic" to mean a great work which
has held the stage for a number of decades, then among American operas
only Porgy and Bess qualifies.  However much I may admire the examples
of Thomson, Blitzstein, Sessions, Bernstein, Moore, Adams, and Barber,
I can't say that people other than me are humming the tunes or eagerly
awaiting a second recording.  At any rate, it put me in a somewhat sour
mood, and I hadn't even heard Thomas's work yet.  I resolved to do my
best to focus on the goods and to ignore the advertising.

Thomas, born in 1924, has had, for an American composer, a nice career.
Of course, it hasn't been in classical composition, but mainly in the
popular theater, television, and show business.  An American composer
generally takes one of four routes: inheriting money or finding a patron
(Carter and Copland), teaching (Piston), commercial work (Bernstein),
and day job (Ives).  The number of people actually making a living from
classical composition could be hidden in a flock of whooping cranes.

A pro, Thomas has delivered a professional product.  I like the fact
that he turned to O'Neill, an operatic playwright if ever there ever a
wiz there was.  The play, a New England variation on Phedre, has all the
great verismo elements: Forbidden Love, great despair, and murder.  The
music derives from various sources, from the Turandot opening, to the
Coplandian vocal writing in The Tender Land, to a bit of Barber's Vanessa.
This in itself doesn't invalidate the opera.  Hanson's Merry Mount is
just as derivative.  But Hanson puts an individual face to the music.
You wouldn't mistake Hanson's music for anybody else's.  I can't say the
same for Thomas.  There's no discernable distinct personality or voice
in his opera.  The real problem, however, comes into prominence when we
look at Thomas's designation of Desire under the Elms as "An American
Folk Opera."  This, of course, brings to mind Gershwin's "Folk Opera,"
Porgy and Bess.  Desire is a piece of work from a professional.  Porgy,
however, comes from a genius.  As clumsy as Porgy may be musically
compared with Desire, it makes Thomas's work seem like very weak tea
indeed, despite a reasonably solid, but not astonishing third act.
Thomas's music mainly serves as a vehicle on which to hang the libretto's
words.  No tune, no sequence, sticks in the memory.  There's no equivalent
of "What you want with Bess" or the funeral and hurricane scenes.  It's
all quite pleasant, but where's the power of O'Neill?  The music conveys
an agreeable Sunday afternoon rather than the desire promised by the
title.

How the opera ever attracted the likes of Hadley and Morris puzzles me.
I assume both men have other things they could have done instead.  Morris's
performance is okay, but Thomas doesn't give him a hell of a lot to work
with.  Hadley's got vocal problems.  His voice has taken on a dull finish
and he occasionally has trouble with producing a really solid high note.
On the other hand, both performers act pretty well for singers.  The
most dramatically vivid singer is Victoria Livengood, but then she has
the most dramatically vivid music.

The CD production is first-class.  Manahan leads a world-class orchestra.
The well-known Thomas Z. Shepard produced, calling to mind the best,
slightly bass-y sound Columbia/CBS achieved in the stereo era.

Steve Schwartz