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Tobias Picker’s ‘An American Tragedy’ at the Met
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
NEW YORK OPERA REVIEW
NEW YORK OPERA REVIEW
Tobias Picker’s “An American Tragedy� at the Metropolitan Opera, through Dec. 28. 212-362-6000, www.metopera.org. (In Atlanta, the opera will be heard live from the Met Dec. 24 at 1:30 p.m. on WABE 90.1 FM.)
New York — Political pundits will never scream about it on television, but there’s an increasingly clear red state/blue state divide in contemporary American opera. The cultural values, however, are divided by opera companies and their composers, not geography.
In essence, it comes down to what a typical listener might term modernist vs. traditional. (Forget for a moment that modernism has been the dominant tradition for the past half century.)
When commissioning new works, opera companies in Detroit, St. Louis and Dallas, for instance, have hewed to the traditional — linear storytelling; politically noncontroversial topics; good-vs.-evil plots with clear resolution; and, crucially, dissonance used mainly for psychological or cinematic effects, but never woven into the fabric of the score.
By this reckoning, the modernist style might include everything else. At the San Francisco Opera, John Adams’ latest opera, “Doctor Atomic,� premiered in October. Onstage, it was blue state all the way, highlighted by edgy, politically charged commentary on an opaque topic — the morality of dropping the atom bomb on the Japanese — and a plot that flickered between realism and meditation.
Quality is not determined by musical styles or politics, of course, but a composer who takes an artistically “retro� approach should, in theory, have an easier time than one who is trying to reinvent the genre.
The latest salvo in this cultural struggle comes from New York, where the Metropolitan Opera has commissioned Tobias Picker’s “An American Tragedy,� which runs through Dec. 28. With a poorly paced libretto by Gene Scheer, it’s a deluxe, mostly old-fashioned opera that tries hard to place the familiar American epic onstage, involving a man’s ambition, set within a framework of class structure, religion, morality, money and sex.
Like the George Stevens’ film “A Place in the Sun,� the opera is based on Theodore Dreiser’s 1920s novel about an amoral young man and the two women who represent the poles of society. He satisfies his lust with a factory girl, whom he impregnates, while also wooing a rich and beautiful socialite. With ambitions of joining the moneyed class, he drowns the to-be mother, stands trial, repents to his Christian zealot mother and, finally, takes his seat in the electric chair. The 1951 film version holds much more emotional uncertainty than Picker’s opera. The delectable, 17-year-old Elizabeth Taylor and her strong family embody the American dream and contrast with the hopelessness of Shelley Winter’s dreary poverty. Montgomery Clift’s crime is horrible, but you can root for him anyway. Hollywood’s take on Dreiser was subtle, faceted, compelling.
Picker’s music ennobles his characters with no such power. “American Tragedy� is his fourth opera. The composer here writes vocal lines that pleasingly follow the contours of speech but just as often sours on an awkward or vocally ungrateful turn. Orchestrally, he hectors, rather than seduces, with jarring chordal progressions and bland rhythms. From the opening, he jackhammers the mood of the final tragedy. Across three hours, Picker fatigues the listener’s ear.
Still, the Met knows how to deliver a grand show. Almost all the roles are well cast, and in Francesca Zambello’s taut direction and James Conlon’s conducting the disciplined Met orchestra, the story unfolds with unflagging concentration.
Handsome, meek and vocally serviceable, baritone Nathan Gunn looks and sounds the part of confused killer Clyde.
As the factory girl Roberta, Patricia Racette is blessed with a pretty, girl-next-door soprano with lovely top notes and no sexiness in her sound. (Racette played a similar, youthfully naive personality in Picker’s first opera, “Emmeline.�)
Onstage, Racette is just as likable as her opposite number, glamorous mezzo Susan Graham, who sings Sondra gorgeously and affectionately but here looks too matronly to play the ingénue. Musically, Clyde and Sondra’s romance could have been fresh, joyous and love-struck, a welcome contrast to the gnawing doom. Picker didn’t exploit that opportunity.
Smaller roles, too, hold impressive voices, notably low-lying mezzo Dolora Zajick as Clyde’s missionary mother. Mezzo Jennifer Larmore (a Marietta native) sings the cameo role of Clyde’s aunt, all affected mannerisms and snarky tones. If only Picker had given them all something better to sing.
Atlanta Opera general director Dennis Hanthorn, by the way, attended opening night. “It’s audience-friendly and dramatically strong,� he said, emphasizing the opera’s traditional approach. “It’s the sort of new opera that might work in Atlanta.�
“An American Tragedy� is the first Met premiere since John Harbison’s “The Great Gatsby� (1999), another score mired in thrice-familiar musical idioms, with little new to add beyond a great plot. So perhaps the paradox is that these traditional-style operas have greater immediate appeal but compromise an artist’s struggle to be original, to find his own voice. And it’s reflecting a cultural divide, like politics in America. Operatically speaking, are we on the right track? Audiences and critics are divided.
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