I hesitated to post this, since I don’t think the comments of an opera novice will add much, but here they are anyway.
I drove up to Conway from the Hot Springs area late Thursday afternoon. It took me awhile to find the Reynolds Performance Hall (I’d never been on this campus), but a couple of students helped me.
It’s a nice, new-looking building, and I claimed my ticket at the front window, then went upstairs to the balcony to wait for the pre-performance talk to begin. While there I enjoyed chatting with a couple who’d driven down from Bella Vista in the northwest corner of the state. They were friends of the young man who portrayed Dimmesdale, and later his wife came in and sat next to us.
Before the talk started, Lori Laitman called attention to her scarlet shoes and purse, then had David Mason start. He provided an enthusiastic explanation of the opera’s structure, and it turned out that Lori composed music to his words (what came to my mind was that the poor sod who used to write lyrics for the Grateful Dead often had to do so at the last minute, after their music was finally ready). I had the pleasure of meeting and speaking briefly with David afterward but didn’t run into him at the intermission to say how much I liked what I was witnessing. And I can only imagine what a rush it must be to hear your own words sung with such feeling and beauty onstage. Lori’s account of her composition process was appreciated, and it seems that the way this worked was that she’d sing to Dave over the telephone, and he graciously consented to allow his words to be changed as she occasionally felt necessary. She also mentioned that she had to change some things at a late date, since the harpist had had an accident which didn’t allow for a harp part this weekend. During the performance I kept wondering and theorizing about where the harp parts would have been. Another thought that recurred to me during the performance was David’s quotation from Auden that words in an opera are mere foot-soldiers to be killed off by the thousands. I enjoyed the performance thoroughly; my one small complaint was that sometimes the orchestral music seemed to be drowning out the lyrics. Or maybe it was just my hearing.
Dana Gioia was at the pre-performance talk and later came out and gave an introduction to the performance. Most seats were occupied but fortunately not all. I’d gotten fourth row seats, right in the middle, but when my wife came, she felt this was too close, so we moved to some available ones on the right side near the back, well behind a large camera filming the event. I don’t know who was doing the filming, but the main offices of the Arkansas Educational Television Network are less than a block away.
At this point I should confess something. This was my first opera. In the several states where I’ve resided, the towns I lived in never had such a thing, at least not that I was aware of. My wife had attended some in St. Louis (she still talks about hearing a version of Peter Grimes there), and I must agree there’s no comparison between seeing the work performed and just listening to it on the radio or a recording. This was a great experience.
My favorite performer was Robert Holder, who played Chillingworth. He was unfailingly clear and sufficiently evil for anyone. My favorite moments, though, came in the scene where Dimmesdale interceded for a desperate Hester so she could keep Pearl, the scene with the two of them in the woods (the orchestration became simpler as she sang a beautiful line, “There is a ship in Boston Harbor…”), and Dimmesdale’s death scene on the scaffold where the orchestra did a full stop as he asked Pearl whether she’d kiss him then, and—in silence—she did. Tears came to my old jaded eyes a couple of times here. One really striking part for me was when the chorus sang of “one law” behind the scrim (sorry I don’t know what any of the song titles are; I’ll be glad to obtain an actual copy of the libretto and a CD). The Mistress Hibbens songs appeared to be some of the most popular crowd-pleasers. The little girl who played young Pearl was a darling red-clad sprite (rather less of a demon than the book character was, in my humble opinion) and nearly stole every scene she was in.
I look forward to reading better accounts of this, and I hope to hear/see this opera again someday. AND I hope to see some OTHER operas now. Who knew this could be such fun?
[This message has been edited by Mark Blaeuer (edited November 10, 2008).]
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