TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2004
Two
operas
are polar opposites
OPERA
Opera
in Concert
At
Jane Mallett Theatre
In Toronto
on Sunday
REVIEWED
BY KEN WINTERS
The valiant Opera in Concert, which has long specialized in bringing us good
operas we don’t hear very often, thus expanding our experience far more than
our mainstream opera companies do, revived two 20th-century Canadian works on
Sunday at Jane Mallett Theatre.
Timothy Sullivan’s Dream Play, the
younger and lesser of the two, dates from 1988. Charles Wilson’s greater church
opera, The Summoning of Everyman, had its first hearing in 1973.
Wilson’s piece, with Eugene
Benson’s strong, communicable libretto taken from the 15th-century morality
play Everyman, was well-received at its premiere, and had other
productions at the time. I remember liking it and was pleased at Sunday’s
performance to find that it has stood the test of time, as well as doing nicely
without the visual aids of sets, costumes and dramatic lighting. An opera that
can forego the wiles of production is in rather better shape for survival than
one such as Sullivan’s Dream Play, which cannot.
Though using a mere handful of
instruments, Sullivan’s scoring of his own libretto is so intrusive upon the
words that only one in 10 can be heard, let alone comprehended, so that you are
sitting for an interminable hour listening to something that makes not one
shred of dramatic sense and not much more musical sense. Perhaps “production”
might have helped sort things out, but since Opera in Concert, by definition,
does not provide such luxuries, it’s quite hard to understand how it hoped to
put across this work. I spent much of Dream Play suffering for the
singers.
Wilson’s
The Summoning of Everyman, which came next, thus had much to regain in
audience approval; from the first note, we knew we were on firmer ground. A
young Newfoundland baritone, Calvin Powell, sang the opening declamation with
arresting authority beauty of sound and crystalline diction. And from that
graceful opening stroke, it was also apparent that composer Wilson’s scoring
was at pains to allow his singers to communicate, verbally and musically this
tale of Death summoning Everyman to account for his life before God. This
practical principal of communicability prevails throughout the work, so that
the singers are free to make their characters forceful and detailed. Needless
to say, many of the same singers who had problems in the first opera fared much
better in the second. The same could be said for Alex Pauk, who conducted both
works.
Tenor Marcel van Neer, probably the most effective among
the cast for the Sullivan was also outstanding as Everyman in the Wilson.
Mezzo-soprano Lynne McMurtry who was often forcing her voice in Dream Play, sounded
much more poised in her double role of the Paramour and Faith in The
Summoning. Soprano Rachel Cleland-Ainsworth, shrill and often
incomprehensible in Dream Play, was considerably improved in the second.
Baritone Bryan Estabrooks was a much better Death in The Summoning than
he had been in any of his five roles in Dream Play. And so it went.
Baritone Jose Hernandez, the company’s rehearsal pianist
and coach, stood in for an ailing Joey Niceforo as the Devil in The
Summoning, and while his Spanish accent threw us off the track momentarily,
his voice and his sardonic portrayal more than compensated.
Indeed, all conspired to persuade that The Summoning of
Everyman would reward more than this solitary austere revival. Dream
Play will have a harder future.
Special to The Globe and Mail
December 6, 2004
Opera in Concert – “Dream Play” and “The
Summoning of Everyman”
Opera in Concert presented a double bill of
Canadian operas this weekend to an appreciative audience.
Charles Wilson’s 1973 “The Summoning of
Everyman” has a clear and precise libretto by Eugene Benson based on the famous
medieval morality play. Wilson’s opera works because the score, while modernist
in sound, presents dramatic vocal lines that punch out the text while the
orchestra itself is filled with interesting emphatic effects.
Timothy Sullivan’s 1988 “Dream Play” gives
glittering opportunities for a small chamber group of five musicians, and
sparkles instrumentally while challenging the singers. Sullivan’s own libretto,
about the God Indra’s daughter visiting Earth, however, is dreary. There is no
conflict or real character development.
Stand-outs among the ten talented young
singers were tenor Marcel van Neer and mezzo-soprano Lynne McMurtry, with
soprano Rachel Cleland-Ainsworth a close second. Alex Pauk and his excellent
Esprit Orchestra provided strong musical accompaniment.
Diction still remains a problem for operas
in English and surtitles would certainly be welcome.
I’m Paula Citron, arts reviewer at CLASSICAL
96.3 FM.
Dec.6, 2004.
01:00 AM
Canadian operas get a second chance
WILLIAM LITTLER
By and
large, opera has not been a specialty of Canadian composers. As one of the most
distinguished of them, Oskar Morawetz, once remarked, “Why should I spend two
years of my life writing something that will probably be staged only once?”
The
question is a fair one. So few in number are our major companies and so short
are their seasons that Canadian operas, seldom staged to begin with, rarely
have a second chance to prove themselves.
All the
more reason, then, to give thanks to Toronto’s Opera in Concert for what
happened yesterday afternoon in the St. Lawrence Centre’s Jane Mallett Theatre.
As
general director Guillermo Silva-Marin explained when introducing the
afternoon’s presentation, Opera in Concert lacks the financial resources to
commission new Canadian operas, so it has decided to revive already written
operas deserving of another chance.
Last
season it presented a double bill of one-act works comprising Harry Somers’ The
Fool and John Beckwith’s Night Blooming Cereus, both early
inspirations of their respective composers, dating from the 1950s.
This
season Silva-Marin chose another double bill, of more recent works, opening
with Timothy Sullivan’s Dream Play (1988) and closing with Charles
Wilson’s The Summoning Of Everyman (1973).
Back in
the 1970s, Wilson, then teaching at the University of Guelph, appeared bound
for a major career in the field, the children’s opera The Selfish Giant,
the church opera The Summoning Of Everyman and a full-length opera for
the Canadian Opera Company, Heloise And Abelard, seeming to offer
promise of substantial things to come.
What
did come was Psycho Red, commissioned for the 1978 Guelph Spring
Festival, a forgettable contribution to the genre, followed by the unstaged Kamouraska.
Thereafter,
Wilson’s attentions, still drawn to vocal music, focused on contributing to the
choral and solo repertoire.
But as The
Summoning Of Everyman reminded us yesterday afternoon, here was a composer
with real dramatic instincts, who understood how to set a text, characterize
roles individually and provide a supportive rather than competitive orchestral
accompaniment.
Adapted
by his theatrically learned librettist, Eugene Benson, from a 15th century
morality play, The Summoning Of Everyman clearly deserved a second
chance. Whether Timothy Sullivan’s Dream Play did seems far less
certain.
Younger
by 23 years (he was born in 1954), the Ottawa-born Sullivan first came to
prominence with his operas Tomorrow And Tomorrow, premiered in New York
in 1987, and Dream Play, premiered in Toronto by the Canadian Opera
Company a year later.
Both
are chamber operas (Tomorrow And Tomorrow is actually a monodrama) that
paved the way for the more ambitious Florence, The Lady With The Lamp,
introduced at the 1992 Elora Festival and subsequently revived by Opera in
Concert.
Florence,
far more than Dream Play, is the
work of a musical dramatist. In adapting Strindberg’s famous drama, Sullivan
failed to do the very things that Charles Wilson so skilfully did to bring his
story alive and give his score variety, and his cast, most of whom had to sing
three or four roles each, often sounded almost interchangeable musically.
Although
his musical language was in some ways more sophisticated than Wilson’s, this
proved to be no advantage to clarifying an already complicated mythological
tale. Composers who come to opera often recognize that they need simplification
in order to achieve clarity. There was little clarity in Dream Play.
Both
operas were conducted in the presence of their composers by Alex Pauk, whose
Esprit Orchestra contributed the players (only five in the case of Sullivan’s
opera, 12 in the case of Wilson’s). Six singers shared the 19 roles in Dream
Play, 10 in the 13 roles in The Summoning Of Everyman.
The
singing sounded competent, with tenor Marcel van Neer the standout for his
pivotal role as Everyman.
Although
neither opera was acted out, the casts did supply helpful gestures in Wilson’s,
whose plot proved easier to follow.
Now,
after two seasons of one-acts, how about a full-length Canadian opera from
Opera in Concert next season?