New Bolcom opera in Chicago
By SCOTT CANTRELL - The Kansas City Star Date: 10/16/99
CHICAGO -- It's too soon to know whether we've gotten any masterpieces
out of the bunch. But the ongoing flowering of new American operas
suggests that a medium long derided for pompous irrelevancy is, in
fact, very much a living organism.
Even smaller opera companies in the Midwest have been doing their
part to refresh the repertory. In the last 10 years alone, Opera
Theatre of St. Louis has mounted four main-stage premieres of American
operas, by David Carlson, Anthony Davis, Stephen Paulus and Paul
Schoenfield. 1998 saw world premieres from Lyric Opera of Kansas
City (Henry Mollicone's "Coyote Tales"), Tulsa Opera (an extensive
revision of David Carlson's "Dreamkeepers") and Opera Omaha (Libby
Larsen's "Eric Hermansson's Soul").
Particularly interesting now is a cluster of new operas based on
classics of 20th-century American literature and mounted by the
country's three top opera companies. Last season it was Tennessee
Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire," turned into an opera by Andre
Previn and introduced by San Francisco Opera. Come December, the
Metropolitan Opera will give the world premiere of John Harbison's
operatic version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby."
And just last weekend, Lyric Opera of Chicago gave the first performance
of William Bolcom's "A View From the Bridge," based on the original
one-act version of Arthur Miller's play. Adding to the allure of a
Chicago weekend was a new production of "Falstaff," with superstar
bass-baritone Bryn Terfel as the Lothario manque.
Options also included a Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert, with
music director Daniel Barenboim conducting the Bartok First Piano
Concerto (with Yefim Bronfman as soloist) and Mahler's First Symphony.
(See accompanying story.)
Streetwise `View'
Miller himself joined Bolcom, librettist Arnold Weinstein and other
members of the creative team for a full-house public forum Oct. 9
at the Merle Reskin Theater. And he pronounced the 1955 "View" --
with the lawyer Alfieri as narrator/commentator in the manner of a
Greek chorus -- as a natural for operatic treatment. (Indeed, the
play first was turned into an opera back in 1961, by Italian composer
Renzo Rosselini, brother of the film director Roberto Rosselini, but
that version has vanished with scarcely a trace.)
Musically speaking, the new "View" will disturb no one's digestion.
Presumably befitting its setting in the shipyards of 1950s Brooklyn,
it often suggests an updated Leonard Bernstein, in streetwise "West
Side Story" vein.
Bolcom's tonality is tarted up with more added-note dissonance, but
he shares his late precursor's orchestral virtuosity and jazzy urgency
-- and his readiness to indulge in sheer opulence. The vocal writing
is mostly grateful, taking on more angularity and higher pitch when
dramatic tensions get screwed tighter.
Two-and-a-half hours long with one intermission, the opera is set in
an Italian-American neighborhood in the port community of Red Hook.
Eddie Carbone, a dockworker, is married to the sensible, long-suffering
Beatrice. But their marriage is threatened by Eddie's obsession with
his orphaned 17-year-old niece, Catherine, who shares their small
apartment.
This obsession comes to a head when Eddie and Bea take in two of her
cousins, illegal aliens -- "submarines," they're called -- fresh off
the boat from Italy. Soon a romance sparks between Catherine and
Rodolpho, whose blond hair and singing set him apart from the
community's macho males.
Trying to drive a wedge between the young lovers, Eddie even insinuates
that Rodolpho is gay and interested in marrying Catherine only to
gain citizenship. When this ploy fails, Eddie betrays Rodolpho and
Marco to the immigration authorities, which makes him anathema in
the community.
When Marco returns to the apartment, Eddie pulls a knife and the two
struggle. Marco finally grabs Eddie's arm and with it plunges the
knife into his betrayer's chest. The lawyer Alfieri and the chorus,
who have shared scene-setting and commentary, close the opera with
musings on Eddie's fate and its place in a history going back to
ancient Sicily and Syracuse.
The play has been skillfully nipped and tucked by Weinstein, who
previously collaborated with Bolcom and Robert Altman on "McTeague,"
introduced by Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1992. Miller himself has
contributed a new soliloquy for Marco, lamenting that he has escaped
from poverty in Italy only to be betrayed by someone he thought was
a friend.
But does "View" work, dramatically, as an opera? What I find less
than convincing is the full and immediate disclosure of Eddie's
passion for Catherine. An epiphany more gradually achieved would
have lent more natural tension to the early scenes. And repeated
"Yehs" from a purely incidental character called Mike were unnecessary
and annoying.
That said, the Chicago staging, by director Frank Galati (of "Ragtime"
fame), was a fine piece of work. The evocative set, with its
crisscrossings of girders, railed ramp and balconies, was designed
by Santo Loquasto, who also did the costumes.
The effect was much enhanced by Wendall K. Harrington's background
projections of harbor scenes. (Why don't opera companies do more
with projections?) Lighting designer Duane Schuler went for unremitting
gloom, but there was a reason for it.
Emotionally and vocally, Kim Josephson was a powerhouse Eddie, and
he had his match in Catherine Malfitano's ardent, full-voiced Beatrice.
Alas, Juliana Rambaldi's edgy soprano made Catherine a less alluring
Lolita. Gregory Turay was a handsome, winsome Rodolpho, and in the
first act, when he didn't overextend his essentially lyric tenor, he
pleased the ear. But in the second act highflying vocal lines put
both the young lovers over the aural edge.
Mark McCrory sensitively balanced Marco's rough edges with his
intrinsic sense of honor. It's too bad Bolcom stuck his sturdy
bass-baritone in so ungratefully low a range at the beginning and
end of the new "Ship Called Hunger" aria. Timothy Nolen was a
dignified, richly textured Alfieri.
Conductor Dennis Russell Davies occasionally let the orchestra
play too loudly, but it certainly played well -- expressively and
responsively. Both musically and dramatically, Donald Palumbo's
chorus was a strong participant.
Scott Morrison
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