Pasatieri: The Seagull
Manhattan School of Music, David Gilbert, conductor
Albany TROY 579/580

Pasatieri's Enduring Opera

When Thomas Pasatieri's opera, The Seagull, based on the Chekhov
play, had its premiere at the Houston Grand Opera in 1974 it was given
a lavish production, a splendid double cast (as was the custom at the
HGO) that included such American operatic luminaries as Evelyn Lear,
Frederica van Stade, Catherine Malfitano, John Reardon and Richard
Stillwell, and lots of opera world hoopla. It had a number of other
productions all over the place. Pasatieri, then only 28, became THE hot
American opera composer and went on to write more than a dozen others
in a brief period of time.  Then he stopped - perhaps the meteor had
burnt out or the commissions stopped - and departed for Hollywood where
he has since written, orchestrated or arranged, music for such films as
'The Shawshank Redemption' (was it his brilliantly effective idea to use
the excerpt from 'The Marriage of Figaro' in one of that film's crucial
scenes?) and 'American Beauty.' His librettist, Kenward Elmslie, one of
the best in the business (Rorem's 'Miss Julie', Jack Beeson's 'Sweet Bye
and Bye', 'Lizzie Borden') had fashioned a fine libretto that preserved
much of the conversation in the play.

The premiere was a major success but as far as I know no commercial
recording ever came from that production or from any that followed in the
mostly regional opera companies around the country.

In December 2002 the work was given its belated New York City premiere at
the Manhattan School of Music, and it is that production that is recorded
here. The singers and orchestra are all students but only occasionally
would one know that. This is a fine performance, given a taut reading by
conductor David Gilbert and dramatically apt performances by the singers.

The music itself is mostly in parlando style, but frequently blooming
into arias and ensembles that would not be out of place in the operas
of Menotti or even Puccini. In the play within a play (an avant-garde
poetic drama written by the young Constantine) the musical style becomes
slightly more modern (echoing, at one point, the melismatic arioso style
of Stravinsky in 'The Rake's Progress'). There is nothing here to scare
off the ordinary opera-goer, and indeed the piece has been a success
wherever it has been mounted.

 From a strictly dramatic point of view, one does wonder why Pasatieri
and Elmslie chose to build up the part of the neurotically depressed
Masha far beyond her importance in Chekhov's play. One dramatic choice
in the final scene of adding an aria by Madame Arkadina in which she
prattles on about her great success on stage as Queen Jocasta, while
offstage her son Constantine commits suicide, is eerily effective.

It is good to have this recording of an opera that has continued to
live onstage. Pasatieri, who made some revisions and added some music
for this production, has said that the experience has made him begin
thinking about writing another opera after all these years.

The sound level on my copy is quite low; I had to crank the volume control
up quite a bit to get a listenable level.

If you're interested in reliving your own experience of seeing this piece
in the theater, or in otherwise exploring American opera in a conservative
vein you could certainly do worse than give this one a listen. A libretto
is included, but is hardly necessary because of the clear diction of the
singers.

Scott Morrison