CONTENTSCONTRIBUTOR BIOS: Evan Hause, 3 LIVE EVENTS
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A First on First AvenueLeo Kraft David Strickland: Phoenix Park (A Poet's Journey) A Chamber Opera set in Dublin, Ireland. Libretto by Ilsa Gilbert; direction by Tom O'Horgan. Mimi Stern-Wolfe/ Downtown Opera Orch. Theater for the New City. Nov. 15th. Mimi Stern-Wolfe's Downtown Music Productions presented its latest operatic venture in this theater. The performance I saw was one of several scheduled on weekends. Music for the Theater cannot be judged in the same way as concert music. Opera music has to play an important part in telling the story, setting the mood, and delineating the characters of the drama. That said, the music of David Strickland served its purpose quite nicely. His musical language, like that of several other new operas that I've heard recently, is closer to Broadway than to the traditional opera house. It is totally accessible with vocal lines that are lyric and appropriate to the situation. If the music does not rise to any heights of eloquence, neither does the text. Indeed, the libretto leaves much to be desired. The three main characters, the domineering father, the sympathetic mother, and their poet son are stereotypes. The subordinate characters, oddly enough, have a bit more individuality. Naturally, since the characters are Irish, the frustrated young poet drinks himself to death. The problem with the libretto is that it is not dramatic. The play begins with the casket containing the recently deceased young man in the home of his parents. Before long, he emerges to tell his woes, and the rest of the opera is a series of flashbacks. There is no dramatic progression, simply a series of scenes, which do not lead from one to another. A few of these scenes do succeed in establishing a certain mood, particularly one in which a ghostly friend of the poet appears, and the two reminisce about their youth and unsatisfied ambitions. But most of the scenes are static; the action does not move forward. A closing scene of some sort of reconciliation began promisingly (with the best music of the evening), but it did not reach a convincing climax and went on for too long a time. The evening was redeemed by the brilliant stage direction of Tom O'Horgan. He created activity and interest at every moment, moving the characters about the small stage so resourcefully that I quickly forgot that the stage was, indeed, not very large. It was worth the whole evening, for me, to behold Mr. O'Horgan's ingenuity and creativity. The singing was on a high level. I heard Christopher Pfund, tenor as Sean the poet, Robert Mobsby, baritone as the father, and Kim Strickland, soprano as the mother. All were first-rate, singing beautifully and with intelligence. The small orchestra had as its backbone a synthesizer, discreetly and effectively played Mr. Strickland. Mimi Stern-Wolfe conducted with a sure hand. I think it a pity that so much time and hard work should go into an opera that has the same basic problem as so many others, namely, libretto trouble. I can only hope that the indomitable Mimi Stern-Wolfe, if she decides to produce another opera, will find a more theatrical libretto and, perhaps, a more musically ambitious composer. |