Sunday, November 18, 2018

From Feel-Good Movie to Feel-Good Opera

“Second class” Clara (Golda Schultz) surrounded by “first class” angels (Sarah Cambidge, Amitai Pati, Ashley Dixon and Christian Pursell) (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera)

Last night in the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco Opera presented the first performance of the final opera of its Fall season, Jake Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life. The production was the product of a three-way partnership shared with the Houston Grand Opera (which premiered the opera on December 2, 2016) and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (which presented the opera in November of 2017). As might be guessed, the opera is based on Frank Capra’s film of the same name, which shows up consistently on those greatest-films-ever-made lists, and the short story on which the film was based, “The Greatest Gift” by Philip Van Doren Stern.

In many ways this is a production that has Hollywood written all over it. Furthermore, it is not ashamed to say so, since the opening orchestral prelude is played against a projection that looks as if the opening credits of a film are about to roll. Nevertheless, once that screen is raised, we are definitely in the richly three-dimensional world of opera, rather than that of a flat projection. The set design by Robert Brill for Leonard Foglia’s staging is consistently imaginative, complete with four “first class” angels flying (with only a bit of suspension of disbelief) around “second class” Clara, whose aspiration for promotion gives the narrative its backbone. Down on earth Brill worked with a minimum of objects transformed primarily through projection. One might say that he established illusion in three dimensions as Hollywood production teams did in support of two-dimensional moving images.

While the result did not involve the proverbial Hollywood “cast of thousands,” the number of character names in the program book was much larger than most encountered in the opera world, running to 30 entries, not counting the chorus of townspeople. Indeed, the only thing that seemed to be missing was a basic synopsis of the plot that usually appears in the program book opposite the cast listing. For this opera that text was reduced to a single paragraph that basically sets up the reader for the action that is about to unfold on stage. Presumably, it was assumed that everyone knew the plot from Capra’s movie; and, for those who are not familiar with the film, the plot summary provided on its Wikipedia page is followed by Gene Sheer’s libretto for the opera surprisingly consistently.

I say “surprisingly” because much of conventional opera tends to involve a rather skeletal plot line which serves as a prop to support a series of offerings (remember, “opera” is the plural of “opus”) for virtuoso arias, duets, and ensemble pieces. While Heggie’s score offers a few such moments in which attention turns to the “inner voice” of the singer’s character, rather than the plot, for the most part the music serves the ongoing flow of the narrative, playing (of course) a far more significant role than that of the “background music” that Dimitri Tiomkin composed for Capra’s film. (Yes, the score for the movie was written by the composer who is probably best known for the music he wrote for High Noon.)

A consequence of Heggie’s approach is that, with only a few exceptions, one is less aware of individual vocalists than one is of the pace at which the narrative unfolds. In this respect the score is a bit problematic by virtue of the fact that the entire first act almost amounts to a one-hour prologue that will endow significance to what will unfold in the second act. As a result, those unfamiliar with the film may wonder during the intermission whether or not this whole trip was necessary; but the second act responds to that question with a solid affirmative.

There are, of course, characters that stand out over the course of the narrative, all of whom were well served by the vocalists portraying them. Tenor William Burden clearly knew better than to try to channel Jimmy Stewart in the leading role of George Bailey. Nevertheless, through a delivery that was consistently solid but not sentimental, he knew how to capture the spirit of a “Capra Everyman” and present that spirit in musical terms. Equally down-to-earth was soprano Andriana Chuchman, making her SFO debut in the role of Mary Hatch, who eventually marries George. Indeed, the two of them made a “salt of the earth” couple, as believable on the opera stage as Stewart and Donna Reed had been on the screen.

Clara, on the other hand, was a transformation of the film’s Clarence, given a wistful embodiment through Henry Travers. Heggie decided to capture Clara’s otherworldliness with the most challenging vocal work in the opera, melismatic writing that practically defies close attention while soaring up into the stratosphere. The part was sung consistently adeptly by soprano Golda Schultz during the scenes in Heaven, while, as an “observer” on earth, her contributions to the musical texture were more subdued.

Then, of course, there is then underlying political theme of the scenario. George is the manager of a Building and Loan (an organization that used to be called a Savings Bank or a Savings and Loan Society). The deposits it received from its patrons go into a fund that is used to lend money for those building or buying homes. The interest on those loans is then fed back into the accounts of the depositors. Such institutions were vital to those in the middle class pursuing the “American dream” of having their own homes.

In opposition to the Building and Loan is the traditional “big bank,” more interested in advancing the wealth of its employers and external investors than that of its customers. The force of such a bank is embodied by Mr. Potter (sung convincingly by baritone Rod Gilfry), whose duo scenes with Bailey turn into a lesson supporting Max Weber’s contention that any society in which the only value is monetary value is a seriously flawed social institution. Those scenes are likely to resonate powerfully with many in the audience. As one of my news feeds put it, these are days in which even stories that are not about Donald Trump are about Donald Trump!

Whether or not Director Foglia was thinking about Trump in the course of his work is left as an exercise for the viewer.

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