Opera Philadelphia has again put many of its operatic eggs into a single festival basket, in which four of its eight 2018–19 productions are concentrated within an eleven-day period ending on Sunday. It is a formula that has boosted the stature and reputation of the company. As before, an emphasis is on world premieres, including refabricated works, although a well-received new production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor is also part of the mix. Others include Glass Handel, a mélange of works by Philip Glass and George Frideric Handel assembled by and for the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, and Ne quittez pas, a “reimagined” version of Francis Poulenc’s operatic monodrama La voix humaine (1959).
For my single visit on September 25, I opted for the one opera that was entirely newly composed: the one-act Sky on Swings by Lembit Beecher, with a libretto by Hannah Moscovitch, performed in the Perelman Theater of the Kimmel Center. My decision was influenced in part by the presence in the cast of the much-admired mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, whose retirement from the stage a few years ago was made subject to occasional future appearances in unusual projects, of which this opera about Alzheimer’s disease is surely one.
The contrast between respective mental conditions makes for an absorbing juxtaposition as the opera gets underway.
The idea of an opera about Alzheimer’s apparently originated with Beecher (who was Opera Philadelphia’s composer-in-residence for three years and is currently composer-in-residence of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra) and blossomed through discussions with Moscovitch and Joanna Settle, who directed. The opera’s two principal characters, both women, are Martha, an African American in her seventies who suffers from advanced Alzheimer’s, and Danny, who is in her sixties and whose symptoms are just being discovered.
The contrast between their respective mental conditions makes for an absorbing juxtaposition as the opera gets underway. When Martha’s daughter, Winnie, visits her in the Alzheimer’s home to which she has been consigned, the daughter can scarcely get through to her mother. Martha appears surprised to see her, but in fact they’ve been at breakfast for an hour. An ensemble of victims reflects in close harmony on the horrors of Alzheimer’s and the absence of a cure. But generally the music of this scene is thinly scored and atonal in orientation, and it often consists of wispy, tingly, meandering solo instrumental lines in which the harp is especially prominent.
The music changes course entirely for the ensuing scene between Danny and her son Ira. It becomes much more assertive and grounded in reality as it draws aggressively on the full complement of the dozen or so instrumentalists. In fact, mother and son are having an argument about the location of her car: she can’t find it, but he insists it’s in front of her house. In a touching exchange, Ira gives Danny a test: he names ten nouns and asks how many she can remember. Practically none, we learn, and he breaks down.
Following a tense scene in which Danny inspects the Alzheimer’s home—“I wanted to pick a place while I still could”—she moves in and befriends Martha, who fancies that she is the girl who fascinated her one summer years before. The ending is predictable. Despite previous denials, Danny finally accepts Martha’s fantasy and says she is the girl, thereby signaling that she has succumbed to the most savage stage of Alzheimer’s.
The problem with Sky on Swings is that as Danny’s mind deteriorates, one’s interest flags. Von Stade gives a wonderful performance in which the voice holds up well. But her best moments come when she grimly, even sarcastically, articulates, during Danny’s lucid moments, what the future has in store for her; once her mind fails, the singer has less opportunity. Beecher’s music doesn’t help here, as it reverts to the mood of the opening scene, with lots of harp, and tempos get slower and slower as it limps to a close.
Marietta Simpson gives an affecting performance as Martha, especially in communicating the warmth she instinctively feels toward Danny. Writing Winnie for a coloratura soprano was a zestful touch, and Sharleen Joynt dispatches her angular, high-flying phrases with verve and accuracy. Daniel Taylor sings solidly as Ira.
Settle’s direction ensures that the opera’s best dramatic moments work their effect, and the stark, antiseptic look Andrew Lieberman’s design gave the home is just right. The conductor Geoffrey McDonald and his players handsomely bring out details of Beecher’s inventive score.