United Kingdom Opera Double Bill – Gian Carlo Menotti, The Medium & Jake Heggie, Three Decembers: Soloists and Musicians of Royal Conservatoire of Scotland / William Cole (conductor). Sir Alexander Gibson Opera Studio, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow, 1.11.2023. (MC)
Creatives (for both operas):
Director – Matthew Eberhardt
Set and Costume designer – Anna Yates
Lighting designer – Charlotte Burton
Twelve months ago, at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow I reported from an opera double bill of Michael Nyman’s The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Gavin Bryars’s Marilyn Forever (review here). I have now returned to the conservatoire for another double bill: Jake Heggie’s Three Decembers and Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium which are not operas I recall having seen programmed together and Three Decembers is often given as a single opera. Post-WWII operas rarely become part of professional opera house repertory. Thankfully, many music schools and conservatories, such as the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, serve as valued establishments to encounter an imaginative range of non-standard repertoire.
Designer Anna Yates created the set that was used for both the Three Decembers and The Medium. Simple yet effective Yates’s set was a living room, painted white, with the front and sides open to the audience.
Jake Heggie, Three Decembers
Cast:
Madeline (Maddy) – Flora Birkbeck
Beatrice (Bea) – Rosie Lavery
Charlie – Paweł Piotrowski
Contemporary American composer Heggie achieved remarkable early success with his death row opera Dead Man Walking (2000). Written to a libretto by Terrence McNally and based on Sister Helen Prejean’s book. Heggie now has twenty operas to his name including Three Decembers with Gene Scheer’s libretto inspired by McNally’s unfinished play Some Christmas Letters. In 2008 when the opera Three Decembers was premiered at Houston Grand Opera its working title Last Acts was still in use. Heggie wrote the principal role of celebrated actress Madeline (Maddy) especially for American mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade who created the role. Designed in a single act the libretto relates to events over three decades during the HIV/AIDS global epidemic, set in the month of December in the years: 1986 (part one), 1996 (part two) and 2006 (part three).
Broadway actress Maddy has achieved fame and is the character that undoubtedly takes the limelight. Maddy is the mother of two disgruntled grown-up children Beatrice (Bea) and Charlie. The turbulent family dynamic was achieved well by stage director Matthew Eberhardt. This is a family that can’t communicate with civility, and their confrontations become increasingly heated. Feeling overlooked Charlie is distressed at losing his partner Burt to AIDS and is infuriated that his mother cannot even get Burt’s name right, addressing his partner as Curt. Maddy, who thinks only about her acting career such as her Tony Award nomination, is accused by Bea and Charlie of being selfish and neglecting them throughout life. Betrayed by her adulterous husband, Bea takes exception to comments about her excessive drinking. As family secrets are divulged the tension between the three worsens and all the constituents of Three Decembers connect extraordinarily successfully.
Suitably inspired director Matthew Eberhardt and his creative team thrived with this well observed production. Flora Birkbeck as the stylishly dressed Maddy wore a beautifully tailored white pants suit and was later robed in a long, dazzling red evening dress. A mezzo-soprano Birkbeck, such a charismatic actress, made a convincing portrayal of the self-serving mother. Maddy’s Daybreak – such a striking song – was conveyed by Birkbeck beautifully and with the utmost sincerity.
Credible in the role of Charlie, dressed in double denim with a striped shirt, baritone Paweł Piotrowski showed a believable level of suffering over Burt’s death. With Charlie’s heartbreaking solo She called him Curt Piotrowski delivered the text most effectively.
Suggestive of the soundworld of Stephen Sondheim, Bea’s aria She’s late. No, she forgot you was sung splendidly by soprano Rosie Lavery. Consistent, with a bright and clear tone Lavery projects her voice well, achieving her high notes quite easily. Following many years of neglect by her mother it is no surprise that Bea, who always seems to have wine glass in her hand, is dressed plainly in a dull coloured baggy dress. Lavery’s stage presence is I feel an area she might work on.
Heggie’s music entirely appeals to me. At times I can hear a range of influences such as Weill, Copland, Bernstein and Sondheim. Adding greatly to the success of the opera was the ten strong chamber orchestra of strings, woodwind and percussion, conducted by William Cole, who sounded simply marvellous. Most impressive the string sound was trumped only by the woodwind section that sounded magical.
Gian Carlo Menotti, The Medium
Cast:
Madame Flora (Baba) – Flora Birkbeck
Monica – Nikki Martin
Toby – Daniel Gray Bell
Mrs. Gobineau – Rosie Lavery
Mr. Gobineau – Paweł Piotrowski
Mrs. Nolan – Charlotte Bateman
After the interval came Menotti’s chamber opera The Medium. Described as a tragedy in two acts Menotti, as was his custom, wrote both the music and also the libretto. In his time Menotti became the most staged contemporary opera composer. On the American scene many of Menotti’s operas were a hit with audiences and some became part of the established repertory.
Menotti received prizes for his first full length opera The Consul (1950) and his best-known opera is Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951), a yuletide classic written for television. However, in 1946 it was the opera The Medium which established Menotti as the principal composer of his generation. In 1947 for a Broadway production The Medium was successfully paired with his one act comedy The Telephone (1946) and achieved a long run at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. Later Menotti would direct a movie drama of The Medium released in 1951.
The libretto, Menotti’s own, concerns crossing the dividing line between authentic awareness and the supernatural for Baba (Madame Flora). During fraudulent psychic Baba’s seances – assisted by daughter Monica and mute street boy Toby – grieving clients are tricked into believing she can communicate with the deceased. One evening a seance is arranged at Baba’s home, her grieving clients are the Gobineau couple and Mrs. Nolan who believe they will be in the presence of their deceased children. During the seance Baba in shock, breaks off saying she was grasped by the throat by an unknown hand. This sinister encounter is a turning point that leads to her insanity and Toby’s death.
In the role of Baba, the fake medium who drinks to excess, Flora Birkbeck excelled both vocally and with her acting, helped by her convincing stage presence. Adopting a serious look, Baba with a long brown plaited ponytail wore a black skirt and a dark-green velvet jacket. Birbeck’s highlight was Baba’s aria Afraid, am I afraid? sung with effective control demonstrating her gift for heightened expression.
A fine actress, blonde-haired soprano Nikki Martin as Monica was well suited to the role. Monica sings a lullaby The Black Swan to calm Baba’s temper, which develops into a duet with Baba. Employing a bright voice with clarity, Martin conveys an appealing girlishness matched by her light blue party dress. Standing out was her aria Monica’s Waltz where Monica responds to Toby’s indication of his love and her deeply felt reaction. Under pressure Martin’s bright voice does develop a noticeable vibrato but it is nothing to worry about. Baba and Monica, who have the lion’s share of the libretto, received splendid support from Daniel Gray Bell (Toby), Rosie Lavery (Mrs. Gobineau), Paweł Piotrowski (Mr. Gobineau) and Charlotte Bateman (Mrs. Nolan).
Menotti’s score is an agreeable combination of Italian verismo, occasionally reminding me of Puccini, and aspects of contemporary American music, such as fleeting reminders of his younger contemporary Sondheim. It was conducted by William Cole with resilience and enthusiasm, and he was able to tighten and release the tension as required by the score. The fourteen players of the chamber orchestra responded to Cole with first-rate playing. Menotti’s instrumentation is highly effective, a combination of strings, woodwind, brass and percussion felt ideal and the singers were never in fear of being drowned out.
This was a marvellous evening at the Gibson Opera Studio, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where time just flew by. The double bill of Three Decembers and The Medium is a memorable example of how post-WWII operas don’t have to be feared and can be entirely engaging. Though I relish both operas, if my arm was twisted and I had to select my favourite, it would be Heggie’s Three Decembers.
Michael Cookson