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Sunday, May 8, 2005
‘Margaret Garner,’ an opera world premiere
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Opera Review “Margaret Garner” at Detroit’s Michigan Opera Theatre, running through May 22.
Detroit — If opera was debated and categorized like politics, you’d be awed at how deftly “Margaret Garner” captures the center. The new opera, given its sold-out world premiere Saturday by the Michigan Opera Theatre, balances what might be called a “blue state” libretto with “red state” music.
Its resounding opening night success, an all-but-flawless triumph, must be attributed to the production’s smooth polish and, on a deeper level, to the many buttons it pushes. It is both progressive and conservative, risky and predictable.
It is not an opera to love, however. The tale of an escaped slave who kills her own children and herself rather than return to bondage, “Margaret Garner” is devastatingly effective in the theater, even if, as a piece of music, it never quite rises to greatness.
The two-act tragedy, with words by Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison, recounts the harrowing, horrible life on an 1850s Kentucky plantation, contrasting the pampered, amoral owners with the terrorized slaves, whose lives are crushed even as their spirits remain optimistic.
There’s bitter irony everywhere in Morrison’s poetic, knife-sharp libretto. Slave owner Gaines can’t control his animal lusts. Meanwhile the slaves, who are treated like chattel, sing of true love and sharing secrets by the light of the fire. Gaines, like Margaret, grows in stature and self-awareness as the opera unfolds.
It’s a retelling of the American experience that progressive-minded ticket-buyers (and corporate donors interested in diversity issues) are eager to embrace, as they have in the other arts.
In Detroit, where the opera company reportedly draws as much as 12 percent of its audience from the African-American community — significantly higher than the four percent national average — producing an opera with the scope and ambition of “Margaret Garner” seems long over due.
Yet where fashionable audiences might demand literary works that speak with a contemporary sensibility — Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Beloved” draws from the same historical event as “Margaret Garner” — when it comes to music, they want familiarity over creativity, old over new.
Musically, it’s the good ol’ 1950s again. Composer Richard Danielpour, who like Morrison had not previously created an opera, never exerts his own musical voice. Instead he taps familiar, pre-digested styles that allow our attention to remain on the story and singing.
In the opening chorus, a group of slaves are about to be auctioned off, families separated. The music begins like a world-weary spiritual, then shifts into jaunty rhythmic overdrive, briefly recalling “Mambo” from Bernstein’s “West Side Story.”
When plantation owner Gaines recalls his trouble-making youth, the composer taps eerie psychological effects straight from Britten’s “Peter Grimes.” Elsewhere, for a cozy sense of home, we hear Copland’s 1940s open-prairie Americana.
He evokes Vaughan Williams’ “Lark Ascending” for the act-two intermezzo. It’s a haunting, reflective moment that follows the opera’s horrific climax: Margaret has seen her husband beaten (Rodney King-style) and then burned alive. She’s killed her children to prevent recapture and then, mentally at least, takes her own leave from this earth. Call the scene “Margaret Ascending.”
Sadly though, aside from a few ear-catching bits, “Margaret Garner” wouldn’t pass the CD test, where you’d listen repeatedly to the music alone for its beauty and emotional power — the measure of every enduringly great opera. It might be more akin to Menotti’s “The Consul” or, more recently, Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking,” as American verissimo operas that don’t stand alone as music but succeed in the theater.
Another factor in the new opera’s success is its compelling, smoothly integrated production. Stage director Kenny Leon (of Atlanta’s True Colors Theatre Company) gets natural movement from the singers, but at times smartly stylizes the action. Marjorie Bradley Kellogg’s sets evoke a frame house, simple yet comforting.
Choreographer Patdro Harris — another Atlantan brought in for this production — does a brilliant job in small ways. He has the slave catchers approach Margaret’s hideaway lean-to with the stealthy advances of a snake, both creepy and beautiful. Conductor Stefan Lano kept the orchestra together in tight, bold gestures.
The cast, too, was uniformly strong. Mezzo Denyce Graves, whose voice remains a combination of velvety richness and husky bite, inhabited the title character. As her husband, baritone Gregg Baker delivered steady vocal warmth, even as a man humiliated at almost every level.
As Gaines, Rod Gilfry, who sang despite a slight cold, navigated a role the composer intended as a “Verdi baritone,” often singing long lyrical lines at the top of his range. Angela Brown’s glorious soprano enriched the matronly part of Cilla.
Should “Margaret Garner” come to Atlanta? It’s hard to know how it would play to Atlanta Opera’s audiences, who are inexperienced with contemporary works. But general director Dennis Hanthorn is looking into it, in possible conjunction with Stephanie Hughley of the National Black Arts Festival. Both attended the premiere. Charlotte’s Opera Carolina has already claimed the Southeast premiere rights, for next spring. But the lesson is clear: engage an audience on multiple levels and you’re likely to produce a new hit opera.
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