Opera "Blue" Premieres in Washington After a Three-Year Delay

When Washington National Opera announced its premiere of composer Jeanine Tesori and librettist Tazewell Thompson's opera Blue for March of 2020, it seemed like the time was perfect to present a story dealing with racial tensions in the United States. The outrage over deaths of unarmed Black people at the hands of mostly white policemen led to renewed street protests in the United States and the Black Lives Matter movement spread across the globe. Three years later the Washington premiere, delayed by the pandemic, the topic remains as relevant as ever. Just scroll down your social media feeds to witness increasingly open and bold expressions of hatred toward "the other." Blue offers a rare and intimate look into how racial inequality destroys lives and tears into the fabric of community.

Police officers in Blue                                                        (Photo: Scott Suchman)

The opera's title refers to the blue uniforms of New York City policemen. The characters are named by their roles: the Father, the Mother, the Son, the Reverend, the Nurse, Policemen and Girlfriends, indicating they represent generic members of a close-knit Harlem community. During a brief musical introduction we see the Father as a young man running into policemen blocking his way wherever he goes until he becomes one of them. Being a policeman gives the young man a secure job, stability, health and dental insurances (no small matter in the United States) and enables him to start a family life.

In the opening scene, the Mother chats with her Girlfriends about the joys of her marriage and desired for a child. The Girlfriends cheer her happiness, but warn she should not bring a boy into this world because he would not live long. The Mother swears to protect the boy. 

The Father's fellow police officers react differently to the news. They celebrate and tease their mate, seemingly confident that their profession provides security.

Next we see the father arriving in the hospital to see his new baby. He is proud, excited but also frightened about the responsibilities coming with raising a boy in a dangerous world that he knows well as a policeman. This scene is followed by a very brief glimpse into the marital happiness buoyed by the love for a young boy at home. All too soon the playful boy becomes a rebellious teenager, well aware of injustices in his society and ashamed of his father's profession. When asked to stay away from protests in which he could get arrested and hurt, the Son accuses the Father of supporting laws that protect the white people but not his own Black community. Despite angry barbs, the Father hugs his son and assures him of his love. After promising to attend one last peaceful demonstration, the Son leaves the house and never comes back.

In the second act we witness the Father's meeting with a local priest after his son's death. His grief is exacerbated by the knowledge that the boy was killed by one of his fellow police officers. The Reverend encourages him to forgive, but the pain is shaking the Father's faith ("Only a white God would sit in his cloudy white heaven") and he swears revenge.

During the funeral, which brings the community together much as the funerals do after real-life shooting deaths in America, the Father is beset by memories of his son, and feelings of guilt and regret, wondering if he could have done anything different to save him. The parents and the congregation then end their prayers and quietly leave.

Funeral scene in Blue        (Photo: Scott Suchman)

Originally commissioned by The Glimmerglass Festival at the initiative of WNO's artistic director Francesca Zambello, Blue premiered in Cooperstown in 2019. In 2020 the Music Critics Association of North America named it the 'Best New Opera.' It has since played in Seattle, Detroit and Pittsburg and had a European premiere in Amsterdam in 2022. English National Opera is scheduled to unveil its production of Blue next month at the London Coliseum.  

Washington National Opera meanwhile produced a studio recording of the opera, which was published last year on the Pentatone label. 

WNO's repeat performance of Blue on Monday was impeccable. Kenneth Kellog as the Father has made the role his own having sung it in most of the performances so far. He will sing it again in London next month. The role of the Mother was expertly conveyed by mezzo-soprano Briana Hunter, for whom the role was written. She was buoyant in her joys and heartbreaking in her sorrow, with some vocal rollercoasters to handle along the way. Aaron Crouch, who created the role of the Son, returned to it for the WNO production. The Girlfriends (Ariana Wehr, Katerina Burton and Rehanna Thelwell) were in superb voices, and delivered some of the most enchanting ensemble pieces of the evening. If I had to single out one of the three singers, it would be promising new soprano Katerina Burton. Wehr doubled as a nurse, making the most of her comic moment in which she gets to stick the new-born baby into the bewildered Father's arms.

Baritone Joshua Conyers stood out as the compassionate Reverend.

Blue is generally described as an opera about police violence against young black men. Indeed, the Girlfriends warn their pregnant friend: "Thou shalt bring forth no Black boys into this world!" The less pessimistic Father grows more concerned as his 16-year old son starts to rebel. He tells him repeatedly: "Your only duty is to stay alive," underscoring his awareness that it is not a given.

Blue does not seek to impress with violence. The shooting death does not take place on the stage. It does not need to. We see such scenes in the news media often enough. The opera shows the joys and sorrows of average African-American families and dependence on one another and their community. Despite the initial unease, the Girlfriends welcome a new boy into the community and the Father's conflict with his son ends in a firm embrace and pledge of his love.

Global interest in the Tesori-Thompson opera is testimony to its universal themes of love, conflict, pursuit of justice and tragedy.  Tesori's melodic score is an example of contemporary sound with African-American influences and a strong sense for theater. The composer known for Broadway musicals, such as Tony Award-winning Fun Home; Thoroughly Modern Millie and Shrek the Musical, did not shy away from writing tuneful music that people actually enjoy. Blue has been described as an eclectic piece with rich orchestration and eloquent vocal lines. There is every reason to look forward to the world premiere of Tesori's new opera Grounded, which WNO plans to premiere during its next season.  

Thompson's libretto was a mixed bag. It held very few surprises in the first act. The Girlfriend scene offered some of the most beautiful singing, but was too long in my opinion, especially in comparison with its male counterpart. The glimpse into the early family life, hinting it was a happy one, was too short to be remembered before a crucial scene of conflict between the Father and the Son. 

       Kenneth Kellogg and Aaron Crouch as Father and Son in Blue   (Photo: Scott Suchman)

The encounter between the Father and the Reverend in the second act brought to mind a scene from Verdi's Don Carlo, in which King Philip seeks advice about his rebellious son from the head of the Spanish Inquisition. The circumstances are different and the music is different. While the Spanish king seeks to sacrifice his son for the stability of his reign, the US police officer, in an equally powerful scene, seeks revenge for the unjust death of his. 

Another scene that brought to mind a well known opera was the one where somber Girlfriends give support to the grief-stricken mother. It reminded me of Poulenc's nuns in Dialogues des Carmélites preparing for the guillotine. Neither group has hope for a better future.

At the funeral, when the Father's mind wonders back to the past, we finally witness some of the family scenes missed in the first part of the opera. In this unexpected flashback, we witness the Mother making peace between the Father and the Son over a family meal. Throughout Blue, we saw the Mother rejoicing in the birth of her son and agonizing over his death, but no interaction between her and her teenage son until this last scene. It was a little late for me, literally like an afterthought. 

The congregation leaves the stage to a sad but musically calming conclusion. We are left with a sense that a human life has been cut off too early with no lesson learned and more grief to come - the same sense of helplessness we get after learning about yet another shooting death reported in the news. Despite outrage and a wave protests after every new killing of a black man by a police officer, resignation follows soon after. The Father's words to God “How many sons do we have to give before you can’t hold one more?” come back to haunt us, rightfully so. An optimistic end to this opera would ring hollow. 

Zambello has said that art organizations have a responsibility to explore contemporary issues and start dialogues that could lead to change.  She has done her part with Blue and I expect there will be more. WNO has made an extraordinary effort to make the opera accessible to educational institutions and people who don't often see opera. Almost every performance is accompanied by pre- and post-show discussions. The company has reached out to communities at the center of this work to bring them to the opera. in Addition, it is hosting events and inviting the media for dialogues on Blue's themes of race, violence, and reconciliation. A list of events can be found here:

https://www.kennedy-center.org/wno/home/2022-2023/blue/   

WNO has also produced a documentary on the making of Blue, which will be presented on March 18, starting at 1:00 PM at the Justice Forum at the Kennedy Center's REACH,  and will be followed by a panel discussion. The event is free and open to the public.

Arts organizations, at least some of them, are making steps toward awareness of our societal problems and possible change. But so should we all. One thing everyone could do immediately is stop spreading hateful, incendiary messages on social media, while hiding behind fake names.

*****

There will be four more performances of Blue at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater through March 25.

English National Opera in London will run 6 performances of Blue between April 20 and  May 4.

Minorities Dominate Upcoming Opera Seasons

 Minorities Feature Prominently in Upcoming New Operas

Contemporary operas can be an ordeal to sit through. Composers are pressured to offer some new and groundbreaking concept, which usually means hard-to-like music, black-and-white scenography, and absolute absence of tradition. Melody is anathema. A few years ago, I came to Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking at the Washington National Opera almost directly from the world premiere of La Ciudad de las Mentiras (City of Lies) in Madrid. While Heggie’s opera leaned toward traditional, Elena Mendoza’s opus at Teatro Real in Spain’s capital, bore all the characteristics of a modern work.

 

 

La Ciudad de las Mentiras, Teatro Real, Madrid, 2017, photo: Z. Hoke

Mendoza used four stories by Juan Carlos Onetti to explore theatrical and perhaps some musical possibilities, but her sopranos, tenors and baritones never sang. They recited lines from the stories so intertwined that only those familiar with Onetti's work could hope to understand what was going on. The English language surtitles kept the uninitiated out of a complete fog, and a written introduction gave some clarification, but I had to agree with a co-spectator who argued that if a work of art needs so much explanation, it is not a good work of art. If Mendoza's singers did not sing, neither did the musicians played much music. At one point a man appeared on the stage with an accordion only to tap his hand on it a couple of times. An actor portraying a bartender scratched a metal tray with a knife, a piano player hit the keyboard a couple of times and the orchestra produced some "atmospheric" sound, sort of like a distant wind howling. Overall, it was an interesting, innovative stage production, but it was not what an average person would call an opera. 

 

That word typically conjures images of Figaro, Carmen or Violetta singing their hearts out in melodies most opera lovers can hum in the shower. We usually think of opera as a dramatic or comic story related through song and instrumental music. It consists of melodic arias that express a character’s feelings, and spoken or almost spoken recitativi, which move the action forward. Of course, today, if you google the word “opera”, you may come across information about a browser for Android devices.

 

Many modern operas veer away from the standard structure. In September of last year, the historic Bavarian State opera in Munich, Germany, premiered a new music-theater work 7 Deaths of Maria Callas by controversial performance icon Marina Abramović. The New York-based artists is perhaps best known for her 2010 MoMA performance The Artists Is Present, in which she sat at a table speechless while long lines of visitors waited to sit across her and watch her expressions. 

7 Deaths of Maria Callas was presented as an opera. It featured seven arias Callas was most famous for, such as Vissi d’arte and Un bel di  sung by various sopranos, while Abramović, occasionally joined by actor Willem Dafoe, recited her own narratives. Music by composer Marko Nikodijević accompanied her recitatives and video projections, which showed Abramović being strangled by snakes or die in some other torturous manner. 

For a classical opera fan, the one-hour performance was an outrage as was Abramovic’s claim that she and Callas have a lot in common. But perhaps more importantly, Abramović’s latest opus was an homage to a great soprano that some of performance art fans may not have been interested in.  Similarly, the television series Lovecraft Country features an episode based on the 1921 Tulsa massacre that is accompanied by operatic music at the request of composer Laura Karpman. The soundtrack ends in a requiem. 

 

Belgian composer Jean-Luc Fafchamps opened the 2020 season at the La Monnaie opera house in Brussels with a “pop requiem” Is This the End?  Éric Brucher's libretto focuses on a woman caught in a twilight zone between life and death. There, she meets other people in a kind of transitional state between this world and the next.  The staging by Ingrid von Wantoch Rekowski contrasts the live action on stage with film sequences shot inside the theatre and then integrated into the live performance. But the piece is conceived for watching from home.

 

Fans of the traditional music theater may wonder why we even call some of these modern pieces of theater “opera.” But we should be reminded that in Italian, opera means work, labor or opus. Operaio is a worker or laborer. So the word opera is not restricted to the kind of music performances with which it is most often associated.

 

The new works we sometimes dismiss too quickly actually bode well for the future of the opera. Their creators acknowledge and often build on the timeless masterpieces and pay homage to old masters. 

Let’s look at some of the novelties in the pipeline for the upcoming opera seasons. 

 

In the United States, hopes are high that the Metropolitan Opera will be able to re-open on September 27 and make history by staging its first ever opera created by an African American composer and an African American librettist. Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones with a libretto by Kasi Lemmons, is based on the memoir by Charles M. Blow and will star Angel Blue, Latonia Moore, and Will Liverman.

 

The Met will premiere two other operas in its new season: Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice, starring Erin Morley in the title role, and Brett Dean’s Hamlet, with Allan Clayton portraying the tortured Danish prince. 

 

Cincinnati Opera’s ambitious plan for the next season includes two world premieres: Fierce by William Menefield and Castor and Patience by Gregory Spears. Fierce focuses on four teenage girls who struggle to adjust to school, family, and friendship, and follows their journeys toward empowerment. In their college essays, one mourns the loss of a special friend. Another one hides behind her popularity. The third feels oppressed by her parents’ expectations. And the last one struggles with a troubled home life. Despite the chorus of trolls that taunts them, the girls unite in their fight against adversity. The libretto is inspired by life stories of real Cincinnati-area teenage girls.

Castor and Patience is centered on two cousins from an African American family who find themselves at odds over the fate of a historic parcel of land they have inherited in the American South. The opera probes historical obstacles to black land ownership in the United States. 

 

Spoleto Festival USA has commissioned a new opera by Grammy Award-Winner Rhiannon Giddens, inspired by a real-life character from the American South. Titled Omar, the opera is based on the autobiography of Omar Ibn Said – an enslaved African man from the Futa Toro region of present-day Senegal - who was brought to Charleston in 1807. Thirteen years later, Omar, a Muslim, converted to Christianity, but his manuscripts written in Arabic, especially his autobiographical essay, suggest that he remained faithful to Islam.  

 

Dayton Opera will present its first ever full-length opera premiere in its coming season. Finding Wright is a result of creative collaboration of four talented women: composer Laura Kaminsky,  librettist Andrea Fellows Fineberg, conductor Susanne Sheston and stage director Kathleen Clawson. In Finding Wright, 21st century Charlotte (Charlie) Tyler, a young, recently widowed, aerospace engineer and researcher learns about the extraordinary life of Katharine Wright, younger sister of flight pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright. The Wrights siblings were born in Dayton, Ohio.

The Washington National Opera is planning to continue its new opera initiative as soon as the circumstances allow with a short work intended for all ages, titled Elephant & Piggie, based on the book I Really Like Slop! The music is by D.C.-based composer and 2021 Sphinx Medal of Excellence winner Carlos Simon. The libretto is by author and illustrator Mo Willems, who is the Kennedy Center’s first education artist-in-residence.  

Looking beyond 2021, we can expect to see an opera adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Hours. The film adaptation featured Hollywood stars Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman.  Co-commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra, the opera by composer Kevin Puts will bring back star soprano Renee Fleming from her semi-retirement. Puts, whose opera Silent Night won the Pulitzer Prize in 2012 is collaborating on The Hours with librettist Greg Pierce. The staged premiere, also featuring Joyce DiDonato and Kelli O’Hara is slated for 2022. 

San Francisco Opera is likely to bring in a performance of the new Finnish opera Innocence in the near future. The work by composer Kaija Saariaho and novelist Sofi Oksanen, is a co-production of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Finnish National Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, the Dutch National Opera, and the San Francisco Opera and is sung in nine languages: English, Finnish, Czech, Romanian, French, Swedish, German, Spanish and Greek.

Here is how Music Finland online describes the opera:  “Innocence takes place at a wedding in present-day Helsinki, Finland, with an international guest list. The groom is Finnish, the bride is Romanian, and the mother-in-law is French. But the groom’s family has a dark secret – ten years earlier, these characters were involved in a tragic event. When the events from long ago begin to unravel and the ghosts of the past revive their memories of the trauma, the family faces the question: where does the innocence end and guilt begins? 

Sounds bergmanesque and intriguing. 

Los Angeles Opera’s new season is highlighting a one-man opera by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun. In the work titled In Our Daughter’s Eyes, baritone Nathan Gunn portrays a father struggling to become a man his daughter would be proud of. As a gift for his unborn daughter, he writes a diary documenting his journey to fatherhood.   

More new operas than ever are written by and about minorities. Just a few years ago the best that a female or African American composer could hope for was a performance at a smaller local theater. Now, the world’s most eminent opera houses are fighting to commission their best efforts and turn the spotlight on them. If successful, these works may change the world of opera in unexpected ways. 

 

 

 

 

 

Opera in the Time of Coronavirus

This is a preview of my article written for the Washington Opera Society Magazine, June 2020 issue.

Arts organizations, especially opera houses, have put up a heroic fight to stay relevant during the pandemic, primarily by offering free streaming of their best stage productions. Individual artists have done their part by posting highlights from their repertoire in the social media and participating in organized outreach programs. The excuse of not seeing opera because of its prohibitive ticket prices is no longer valid.

No other opera company has done more than New York’s Metropolitan with its nightly presentation of Live in HD series on its web site, that includes such rarities as Berlioz’s Les Troyens and popular works like L’elisir d’amore, interspersed with memorable historic productions of La bohème, La sonnabula and Tosca. In addition, the Met is offering a free 8-week Opera Global Summer Camp via Google and Zoom classrooms, from June 15 to August 7.

Even smaller educational outlets, such as the Castleton Festival in Virginia, have made their productions available free online. Puccini's La fanciulla del West stands out.

The end of the COVID-19 crisis, unfortunately does not mean the end of problems for the performing arts that depend on large audiences.

Social distancing and other restrictions have forced the Metropolitan Opera to cancel all performances until the end of the year, including a new staging of the opening night Aida with Anna Netrebko. 

"The health and safety of our company members and our audience is our top priority, and it is simply not feasible to return to the opera house for a September opening while social distancing remains a requirement,” General Manager Peter Gelb said.

The company had earlier cancelled its planned premiere of Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel, while the new productions of Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte had been postponed to future seasons. All the performances of Die Zauberflöte will feature Julie Taymor's production, rather than the new production by Simon McBurney originally announced. The revival will be part of the December 31 opening night and social gala.

On the positive note, the Met still intends to go ahead with its premiere of Jake Heggie’s modern opera Dead Man Walking. Netrebko appears to be forging ahead with preparations for her debut as Abigaille in Nabucco. She posted a video of a rehearsal session for the role at her home in Vienna.

The Washington National Opera is scheduled to open its 2020-2021 season with a new production of Beethoven's Fidelio on October 24, in celebration of the composer's 250th birthday. The season is to follow with a new production of John Adams’s Nixon in China, as well as Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov and an “American opera initiative.” But at the time of writing this article, the company was still waiting for guidance from federal and local and health experts on when and in what manner it will be safe to resume. The Kennedy Center press office told the Washington Opera Society that “we do anticipate changes to our previously announced programming."

The 2019-2020 WNO season was cut short just ahead of the Washington premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s Blue, a work that grapples with a contemporary tragedy — the killing of an unarmed black man at the hands of a police officer. There could be no better time to show it than now, and one would hope the company will modify its fall season to include Blue.

Washington Concert Opera has confirmed plans to perform Rosini’s Maometto II on November 22 and Bellini’s I puritani in May of next year at the Lisner Auditorium, and is adding Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, which was cancelled in the spring due to the health crisis.

MButterfly, a brand new work by talented Chinese-American composer Huang Ruo will not see its world premiere in Santa Fe this summer since its summer festival has been cancelled. The Wolf Trap, the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and many other summer opera groups also have cancelled all performances.

Seattle Opera has also reached a moment of reckoning, announcing this week the cancellation of its first opera of the 2020/2021 season: Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci. The cancellation represents a loss of work for more than 220 singers, crew, and musicians in addition to the almost 60 percent of its administrative staff that has been furloughed.

“It is a deeply painful moment for us as a company, region, and world,” said General Director Christina Scheppelmann, one time director of the WNO. 

Theaters worldwide have been forced to reimagine their summer and fall seasons amid financial and other post-COVID restrictions.

Italy’s Teatro alla Scala in Milan had planned a grand fall season with 15 opera titles. But instead of conducting Tosca on the opening night in September, Riccardo Chailly will deliver Verdi’s Requiem in honor of the victims of COVID-19, as Toscanini did in May of 1946 to reopen the theater after World War II. The company has announced a new lineup including revivals of La bohème and La traviata, which had not been previously scheduled, but it is not clear what the whole season will look like.

The management of the Opera of Rome announced that it is cancelling its fall season due to the restrictions in closed venues.

The San Carlo Theater of Naples has announced a summer season featuring two concert opera performances at a central city square in July:  Tosca with Anna Netrebko and husband Yusif Eyvazov and Aida with Jonas Kaufmann. Live streaming will make both available to audiences around the world.

The Royal Opera House in London had planned Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Händel’s Ariodante and Janaček’s Věc Makropulos among its offerings for the fall season, but the company has yet to announce if and when it might reopen. And just this week ROH chief executive Alex Beard said the company will "not last beyond autumn with current reserves."

The Paris Opera was forced to cancel new productions even before the pandemic amid a series of strikes in the French capital. Between December and January, the company cancelled more than 70 performances and lost about 15 million euros. It expects to lose another 40 million euros as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company's two venues, Palais Garnier and Opera Bastille, are hoping to re-open in the fall, but the schedule could be heavily disrupted according to the company’s general director, Stéphane Lissner.

“It’s impossible to attract 2,700 people and respect distancing. It’s impossible to maintain distances in the orchestra, the chorus… It’s impossible. We are waiting on a vaccine, medication… Maybe the virus disappears. We have to be optimistic,” said Lissner.

Germany's legendary Bayreuth Festival has been cancelled for this summer and patrons are being reimbursed or can use the tickets for the 2021 festival.

The lockdown of concert halls and opera houses, cuts in air travel and other restrictions have devastated careers and livelihood of artists worldwide. Star tenor Jonas Kaufmann started a petition in April, calling on European politicians to support the performing arts. “What is Germany, for example, other than language, culture, art, architecture, music and…well, also football ? This is the essence of our society. If you destroy that, what is left?” said Kaufmann.

European arts organizations can actually count on some financial support from the state, since culture in Europe is generally considered essential to a personal well-being. Germany, for example, approved an initial relief package of $54 billion for freelance artists and businesses in the cultural, creative, and media sectors at the end of March. Cultural ministers of all 16 states are now asking Berlin for additional funds to keep culture alive and thriving.

That idea is strange to the U.S. political establishment, which has been steadily cutting down funds for art institutions and education for decades, making art dependable on rich donors. There is no doubt, however, that American arts organizations, especially opera companies large and small, will survive the pandemic thanks to determined performing art professionals and their passionate audiences.

“Our mission is to draw our community together through opera, a unique blend of music and drama that speaks to the mind and spirit—especially in difficult times like these,” Seattle Opera's Scheppelmann said.