Now that San Francisco Opera (SFO) has launched its 102nd season with Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera (a masked ball), it is time to move on to the only new work in the season. This will be The Handmaid’s Tale, based on a novel with the same title by Margaret Atwood. Paul Bentley prepared a libretto based on the novel, which was set to music by Danish composer Poul Ruders.
The chorus of handmaids in The Handmaid’s Tale (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)
Atwood’s narrative can be classified as representative of the “bleak futurist” genre. It is set in 2030, when previously democratic America has transmogrified into a theocracy under the new name of Gilead. The “handmaids” are women taken from their respective families and forced into reproductive servitude. The basic plot involves the title character trying to escape from her lot in search of a better life. It probably goes without saying that Atwood’s novel was not a particularly optimistic one.
Ruders (born in 1949 and still alive) has cultivated a catalog that explores imaginative approaches to instrumentation. The score for The Handmaid’s Tale requires a large orchestra, along with organ, digital piano, and a sampler keyboard for a diverse repertoire of sonorities. It also requires five percussionists whose instruments include bass drum, wood block, glockenspiel, crotales, thunder sheet, sizzle strip, xylophone, anvil, tubular bells, vibraphone, snare drum, Bali gong, mark tree, rototom, tam-tam, metal chain, Chinese cymbal, guiro, hi-hat and Basel drum.
On the vocal side the title character, Offred, will be sung by American mezzo Irene Roberts. Bass John Relyea will take the role of Offred’s Commander. The narrative also includes flashbacks, in which mezzo Simone McIntosh portrays Offred prior to the rise of Gilead. The Commander’s wife, who is barren, will be taken by mezzo Lindsay Ammann. The conductor will be Karen Kamensek, who made her SFO debut during the company’s first performance of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah during the opening weekend of the 2014–2015 season.
This opera is a co-production of SFO and The Royal Danish Opera. John Fulljames will make his SFO debut in bringing the staging here. The world premiere performance of that staging took place in Copenhagen on March 6, 2000. The current performances will be the West Coast premiere, meaning that all of the vocalists will be making their respective role debuts!
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