February 7, 2005
Audience, composer approve of opera based on Miller play
by Peter Jacobi, Herald-Times
Just short of nine years ago, composer William Bolcom came away pleased after seeing and hearing how the IU Opera Theater treated his "McTeague" in its first staging by a university, following that work's premiere at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
He was back at the Musical Arts Center on both Friday and Saturday evenings to experience the first collegiate production of his "A View from the Bridge" (another Chicago commission) and to beam when audiences on their collective feet cheered his presence during end-of-opera curtain calls. Once again, he should have been well pleased: his opera received outstanding treatment.
Audiences, with their ovations, signaled approval of both an outstanding contemporary opera and the strength of integrated performances featuring two effective casts.
The opera
Based on Arthur Miller's mid-1950s play, "View" tells the story of Eddie Carbone, a Brooklyn longshoreman who agrees to take in a pair of illegal immigrants from Sicily, then — as in Greek tragedy — becomes victim to a force he doesn't even recognize and that he cannot control: jealousy. He despairs and seethes when his niece falls for one of the illegals, betrays the two men to the authorities, and pays with his life.
Miller's drama, driven along inexorably without subplots, had the makings for opera. Bolcom played to its strengths and to his own: an ability to shape cohesiveness out of various musical styles that flexibly encompass operatic traditions (a Verdian undercurrent, a Pucciniesque aria, and an atmosphere laden with Italian verismo) along with jazz, pop, doo-wop and blues. And everything fits in this taut, not-a-note-wasted score, made all the richer through the use of a prominent chorus that comments on the action and pleads with Eddie, as would his own conscience, to let reason rather than roiling passion guide him.
The orchestral foundation is almost Wagnerian, but, of course, with modernist touches. It reflects the action of the moment and the mood, serving as an ongoing tone poem, to which the singers add their expressive elaborations and expositions.
Bolcom's aim with story and words was to not get in the way, to not bog down their propulsive force. He succeeded. For once in a contemporary opera, and it happens rarely, the music enhances the literary content, gives it a fresh power, makes a listener feel that here is an opera that needed to be written; the score is not superfluous; it has become central.
The production
All is first rate. The spare yet impressive set by Robert O'Hearn establishes atmosphere. It is dominated by a projection of the Brooklyn Bridge and a brick house-front that rises whenever the Carbone parlor behind it becomes the place of action. Michael Schwandt's lighting brings completion and dramatic focus to every scene.
For that commanding orchestral base, this production has the more-than-able IU Philharmonic in the pit, guided by a knowing taskmaster, visiting conductor William Lumpkin. The musicians play brilliantly and with an obvious sense for what the music suggests. William Jon Gray has prepared the chorus so that it sounds glorious and to the dramatic point.
Vincent Liotta, as stage director, has brought his understanding of American theater, Greek tragedy, and opera to bear on the whole of what one sees on the MAC stage and on what each participant contributes. The total package impresses for its achieved unity and flavor.
To have accomplished all that, a malleable and talented set of singers was the final needed ingredient. And that this "A View from the Bridge" production also has. Both the opening night and Saturday casts honored Bolcom's work.
A compelling darkness invaded and pervaded the portrayals by baritones Todd Wieczorek and Austin Kness of the tragic Eddie; they effectively inhabited the opera's center, bringing a level of maturity to the role way beyond their chronological years. So, too, sopranos Jessica Julin and Tamara Wapinsky managed that as Eddie's wife Beatrice, she who tries to hold family together.
High tessitura didn't seem to faze Colleen Brooks and Alison Bates too seriously as they winningly brought to life the role of Catherine, so long loved as a daughter by Eddie and now, in her young adulthood, the object of his obsession. Both Eduardo Aladren and David Sadlier met the tenor challenges for Rodolpho, the illegal that Catherine comes to love, including the opera's most beautiful aria, a lyrical ode to "New York Lights." The heartrending "Ship of Hunger" scene given to the other immigrant, Marco, he who has come to America to keep his poverty-stricken family back in Italy alive, was potently realized by bassos Scott Skiba and Robert Samels. The story's narrator, the neighborhood lawyer Alfieri, gained proper dimension thanks to baritones Kevin Murphy and Robert Brandt.
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Last Updated:
02/07/2005
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