The push for diversity by American opera companies has manifested itself in several ways, not least in a flurry of new operas on politically correct subjects. They can be found not just in the major opera houses but at regional companies as well, in displays of adventurousness that are often balanced by the programming of the safest of works from the standard repertoire.
A case in point is the venerable Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, long esteemed for both its world premieres and its revivals of significant but neglected operas from the past. Unfortunately, the latter have fallen victim to repertoire priorities that resulted, this year, in a four-opera festival season consisting of two new works, the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s Awakenings and Stewart Wallace’s Harvey Milk in a new performing edition, and two overplayed staples, The Magic Flute and Carmen. OTSL hasn’t offered a rarity from the past since 2015, when it gave the (heavily cut) American premiere of Handel’s Riccardo Primo (billed as Richard the Lionheart in accordance with the company’s practice of performing operas in English).
The origins of Awakenings in a book by the eminent neurologist Oliver Sacks promised a work with fresh material, at least for opera. And so it proved to be on the night of June 24, even if its subject, as with many new operas, had already served for a popular film, Awakenings (1990) with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. The sleeping-sickness pandemic of 1916–27 known as encephalitis lethargica left victims living for decades in a largely catatonic state. But in the 1960s, Sacks (Jarrett Porter, heading an able cast), then a young doctor in the Bronx, administered a drug normally used for Parkinson’s patients that allowed victims to regain much of their ability to function, only to find that their restored vitality created new problems. The opera focuses on three patients; Leonard Lev (Marc Molomot), who is doted on by his mother (Katharine Goeldner); Miriam H. (Adrienne Danrich), who learns on awakening that she has a daughter and a grandchild; and Rose (Susanna Phillips), who sings of her husband, real or imagined.
As characters, however, they remain nebulous. Further, the opera suggests that Sacks’s experiment achieved few benefits, if any, and possibly did more harm than good, which may be historically accurate but leaves a vague conclusion. Picker’s pleasantly tonal but low-profile score (handsomely played by members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Roberto Kalb) lacks standout moments, failing to build, for instance, on the film’s episode in which a whole ward of patients suddenly teems with life, which could have made for a wild chorus. Much of the musical interest is concentrated in the orchestra, and the frequent use of ternary and compound meter sometimes reminded me of Janáček without the dramatic punch.
Picker’s librettist, Aryeh Lev Stollman, wove into the story a gay subplot (not present in the book or film) involving a triangle (including Sacks) of unrequited love. By contrast, homosexuality is front and center in Harvey Milk (seen on June 25). The defining quality of the opera’s new version is concision, the composer Wallace having distilled the opera about the gay San Francisco politician, who was murdered in 1978, from the three-act format of its 1995 premiere at Houston Grand Opera down to two (the revised two-act version premiered at the San Francisco Opera in 1996).
In charting Milk’s life from his days as a New York Jewish boy fascinated by opera and by the gay men that enjoyed it to his stint as an openly gay member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Wallace produced a score that is livelier and more varied than Picker’s. Zestily led by Carolyn Kuan, it is also more modernistic without being acerbic. Michael Korie’s libretto facilitates a fast pace and cleanly delineates the characters. You know that Milk, persuasively sung by the baritone Thomas Glass, has found his true self when he launches into a euphoric aria acknowledging his love for men.
Even his killer, his former supervisor Dan White, sung with ringing tone by the young tenor César Andrés Parreño, is interestingly characterized, as one who smarted from putdowns by Milk and had trouble supporting his family. George Moscone, the San Francisco mayor gunned down along with Milk, was portrayed with consummate political smoothness by Nathan Stark.
In a welcome departure from the earnestness of most new American operas, Harvey Milk recognizes that opera should be entertaining, as exemplified by an upbeat choral paean to San Francisco. Harvey Milk may not be destined for greatness—I’d be surprised if the music reveals greater depth upon subsequent hearings—but it’s a solid work that holds one’s interest.
Both operas benefited from sensible stagings by OTSL’s artistic director, James Robinson (in collaboration with Seán Curran for Harvey Milk), that allowed them to address the audience directly without unhelpful directorial intrusion.
The Magic Flute was performed in an English text that cleaned up some “problematic” details. Slaves became “workers.” The Moor Monostatos was stripped of his blackness, which rather eviscerated the scene in which he and Papageno show terror at the sight of each other. And in the exquisite Pamina–Papageno duet, the words “Mann und Weib, und Weib und Mann” variously became not just “Boy and Girl and Girl and Boy” but also “Girl and Girl and Boy and Boy.” Omer Ben Seadia’s production slighted the opera’s serious dimension by omitting the sublime trio “Soll ich dich Teuer nicht mehr sehen?” Otherwise, the performance on June 26 went smoothly enough, although the orchestra as led by Rory Macdonald sounded rather thin.
I chose to give Carmen a rest.