This is the creative team: Herman Whitfield III, composer; Bruce Pearson, librettist.
This is what they’ve done: an opera called “Small Box.”
This is what you’ll get to see: the world premiere of “Small Box” at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater next Saturday evening.
The project began with Pearson, who taught anthropology and linguistics at the University of South Carolina for 31 years. “I taught a few English classes at the state prison as part of my regular teaching load,” he explains. “This was a time when South Carolina had remarkably progressive policies in its prisons, but there were no classes offered for the death row population. Attorneys representing those inmates asked the Commissioner of Corrections to have me work in the death row unit as a volunteer teacher and counselor. So, for about 20 years, I spent part of a day each week serving those prisoners.”
“Small Box” reflects his experiences, says Pearson. “A death sentence is automatically appealed, and the process takes a number of years. In the meantime, men under a death sentence live a normal, everyday life with other death row inmates and the officers in charge of the row. It is these everyday events that make up the story line. The people and events in the opera are based on people I knew in South Carolina and events I either witnessed personally or heard about from others directly involved.”
Pearson decided the story deserved an opera. He shaped a libretto and set about to look for a composer. “Herman was one of several composers to respond. We talked by phone and met in Indianapolis and decided right away to work together.”
Consequently, says Whitfield, “Very much of the composing was done independently. Bruce gave me the libretto and, of course, a little of his perspective of what he would like the soundscape of the score to be. I tried to evoke a sense of realism. After all, the characters in the opera do represent a cross section of death row inmates that might be considered typical, at least in accordance with Bruce’s experience and vantage point. So, in that regard, I did not want to write fantastically suggestive music that would conjure images of, say, Wonderland.
“At the same time,” Whitfield continues, “I did not want to romanticize the music either by making it woefully dreadful. As Bruce has said, life for these inmates is, as they themselves may perceive it, normal. They have presumably accepted that their situations have a low chance of being altered. But from the audience’s perspective, the subject matter might still be considered bleak, while seeing an opera at all might be seen as glorious. So, there were aspects of the libretto, subject matter, and circumstances that warranted reconciling. Overall, I think the end product will represent things nicely.”
According to Pearson, “Herman and I are pretty much of the same wavelength. I’m pleased with his work, and he seems happy with mine.”
As for those who come to the performance, he says, “I think most viewers will find it eye opening. People have no real idea of what life in a prison is like. Even those on death row are not all that different from the rest of us. They do many of the same things other people do. The opera is not intended as a polemic either for or against the death penalty. I simply tried to present things as they are..The music is well suited to the story and mood. The singers are breathing life into the characters,” of which there are eight, six men and two women. Two of the men are prison officers. The women are visitors, one an attorney, the other a wife.
“I would like the audience to experience an extraordinarily wide array of emotions,” says Whitfield. “I took great care to change the music according to what was being said and/or done on stage. Also, I wanted to represent a gamut of harmonic languages — not simply as a stylistic or aesthetic preference but also a pragmatic one. I want the audience to realize that many types of music can be equally expressive. I did also want a certain amount of accessibility in the opera. So, the audience might hear and recognize some harmonies and rhythms that may not be solely or explicitly limited to or associated with those of classical music. I’m hoping that the audience’s perspective of music and its diversity will be broadened.”
Whitfield, who will conduct Saturday’s premiere, is an adjunct professor of music at Martin University in Indianapolis. Two times he won the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Emerging African-American Composers competition. His collegiate studies: conducting at the Cleveland Institute of Music, composition and piano at IU’s Jacobs School, the former with P.Q. Phan, the latter with Andre Watts, Arnaldo Cohen, and Jean-Louis Haguenauer.
He recalls asking himself a question when setting to work on “Small Box:” “How am I going to write an opera about death row inmates who are portrayed by individuals who happen to be singing the entire time?” He had “a perception of contrivance to deal with,” he says.
“Remember, opera is, essentially, performers experiencing a vast array of emotions while managing, ideally, to sing perfectly in tune with perfect breath control and exceptional acting skills. In all, I had to accept the expectations associated with opera while writing about something quite realistic.”
Pearson says “Small Box” is one third of what he hopes to make “An American Trilogy,” again collaborating with Whitfield. “And then, who knows? We may tackle the sequel to ‘Madame Butterfly.’” “Madame Butterfly?” Yes, after being inspired by a performance of Puccini’s masterpiece a few years ago, says Pearson, he began working on a possible sequel covering the lives of Kate Pinkerton and those close to her, Kate Pinkerton being the American wife of the naval bounder who takes up with Butterfly, impregnates her, and departs for home, leading to the tragic denouement in the Puccini classic.
For now, though, the Pearson-Whitfield “Small Box” comes to us. Between the 19th century romanticism of Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet” and the 18th century classicism of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” we get the chance to discover a new 21st century opera. That’s an event to look forward to.
If you go
WHAT: World premiere performance of a one act opera, “Small Box,” with music by Herman Whitfield III and story line/libretto by Bruce Pearson.
WHO: Presented by Magic Carpet Opera Productions. Composer Whitfield conducts; Lesley Delk, a Bloomington-based soprano currently working toward a doctorate in operatic stage direction at the Jacobs School, directs.
WHERE: Buskirk-Chumley Theater.
WHEN: Saturday evening at 7.
TICKETS: $15 general admission; $10 for students and seniors.
