United States Mazzoli, The Listeners: Soloists, Opera Philadelphia Chorus & Orchestra / Corrado Rovaris (conductor). Opera Philadelphia, Academy of Music, Philadelphia, 27.9.2024. (RP)
Opera Philadelphia opened its 2024/25 season with the US premiere of Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s The Listeners. The composer/librettist team had success with Breaking the Waves, which had its world premiere with the company in 2016, but lightning has not struck twice with their latest effort. Although The Listeners deals with some fascinating topics, and I have only praise for the cast and the production team, the story is far too convoluted. Vavrek’s libretto does little to streamline the plot and make it coherent.
At its core, the opera deals with Ranchlands, a suburban community in the US Southwest where people are experiencing the ‘Hum’. This is the name given to an actual worldwide phenomenon in which people report hearing persistent and invasive low-frequency humming, rumbling or droning noises that are audible to many people, but not all.
Claire Devon, a mother and schoolteacher, is experiencing the Hum, and is first seen howling at the moon with Coyote, her imaginary animal friend. Paul, her husband, and Ashley, their teenage daughter, neither fathom nor have much patience with Claire’s rapidly escalating idiosyncrasies.
Kyle Harris, one of her students, appears to be troubled and doing poorly in class. He admits to hearing the Hum and Claire is relieved to have found a fellow traveler.
When Claire is seen hugging Kyle, rumors spread that they are having a relationship. Claire is so preoccupied with Kyle that she breaks off having sex with her husband to take a call from the teenager. Ashley bitterly complains that her mother is oblivious as to her issues as well, which range from boy problems, nipple piercing and shoplifting to a pregnancy scare. After Claire melts down in the classroom, she is fired.
With some hesitation, she agrees to go with Kyle to a self-help group for those experiencing the Hum that meets in the luxurious home of Howard Bart, a new-age guru with long white hair. Angela Rose, his anointed ‘Number Two’, is eager and empathetic to the nth degree in welcoming the newcomers. Throughout Act I, Howard and Angela record ‘confessions’ with people in the group who are seeking help, and these are projected in larger-than-life, black-and-white videos on the screen in real time. All the accounts are disturbing, and some are truly gut-wrenching. The gossip and personal experiences swapped by Ashley and her schoolmates at an earlier point were not any more uplifting.
On a Facebook livestream, Claire makes statements about the Hum that go viral. Ranchlands residents fear that their property values will drop, and the Devon home is vandalized. It hardly seems to phase Claire when her husband and daughter leave her. That is where it stands at the end of the first act.
In Act II, things start to gel. Angela’s confession, in which she laid bare her vulnerabilities, is an emotional punch to the gut. Dillon, another of the group members, spews conspiracy theories about the dark web. Howard witnesses Claire and Kyle kissing, which sends the plot in a new direction.
Howard, with his new age, feel-good vibes is less interested in addressing the scientific aspects of the Hum than in accruing sex and power. He installs Claire as his Number Two which sends Angela into orbit. With Howard’s cruelty to Angela, the scales begin to fall from the eyes of the others, and they see him for the fraud that he is – he cannot even hear the Hum.
The gig is up when the police raid Howard’s home, which results in four people being killed. The Coyote, who is on the scene, may or may not have fired first at the police. Live news updates are given by an effusive and sexy news reporter, Theresa Alvarez. This is pure overkill plot wise.
At the end of the opera, Claire, Angela, Kyle and other Listeners have found peace and now live together in the Devon home. Paul and Ashley try to coax Claire to return to them, but she refuses. As the curtain falls, Kyle takes Claire’s hand and, together with the other Listeners, they start howling. The orchestra fades with the Hum evoked through a haze of electronic sounds filling the void.
Mazzoli’s score is also problematic. Her ingenuity, fascinating musical textures and the integration of acoustical and electronic sounds are not the problem. The issues are mostly in the way Mazzoli sets the text, especially in Act I where most of the dialogue is delivered in a recitative-style manner. This approach, together with the mass of characters and multiple plot lines, fails to get the opera’s dramatic juices flowing.
In the Confessionals. which are in essence arias, Mazzoli hits her mark. With just a bit of plot to stitch them together, they would have made for a powerful opera, with no need for the peripheral family drama that courses through the work.
Lileana Blain-Cruz wisely plays it straight, if a little tongue in cheek, with her staging. The Devon home, school and Howard’s mansion are all realistically rendered. Things seem so neat and tidy on the surface in Ranchlands that the Stepford Wives would feel right at home there.
The fact that you care for these people is undoubtedly due in part to Blain-Cruz’s work with the singers in crafting such clearly defined, intriguing characters. Blain-Cruz also likes color and has a sense of fancy. The groovy vibes generated by the soft pastel hues of the Listeners’ attire in the final scene tempted one to start humming ‘Let the Sunshine In’ from Hair.
There were some standout performances, mostly by singers who portrayed larger-than-life characters with really scarred psyches. Rehanna Thelwell was a powerhouse as Angela Rose. The sweetness and light Thelwell displayed early on gave no indication of the torrential outpouring of despair to come when she sang of her past or exploded at Howard’s betrayal. Lindsey Reynolds was cut from the same cloth: as Ashley, Reynold’s every utterance was electric. John Moore as Dillon generated similar heat with his rants. Earnest and low key, Joseph Lim’s Thom cut through the drama effectively by insisting that science be brought into the discussion, a notion that Howard dismissed out of hand.
Lucy Schaufer’s Hortense justified wiping the disgusting smirk off her husband’s face with a he-had-it-coming bravura. Diana Newman as the blade-wielding, self-mutilating Danica engendered compassion. As Howard, Kevin Burdette oozed smugness and insincerity – not even his engaging voice made this character any less smarmy and repellant.
Aaron Crouch’s Kyle took a while to warm up vocally. By the time he made his soul-baring confession at the end of the opera, Crouch was in fine shape. As Claire, Nicole Heaston is a mess of contradictions expressed in a creamy, rich soprano, while Troy Cook as her husband radiated decency. As fine as these two singing actors are, they paled in comparison dramatically to those playing the walking wounded who populated the stage.
Corrado Rovaris led a masterful reading of Mazzoli’s score. The sounds that emerged from the pit were light and transparent. The musical punctuation marks that Mazzoli wrote into the score emerged organically, creating not only color but drama.
There is an opera in The Listeners. Perhaps Mazzoli and Royce will release it.
Rick Perdian
Production:
Director – Lileana Blain-Cruz
Libretto – Royce Vavrek
Sets – Adam Rigg
Costumes – Kaye Voyce
Lighting – Yi Zhao
Sound – Daniel Neumann
Choreography – Raja Feather Kelly
Video – Hannah Wasileski
Dramaturgy – Cori Ellison
Chorus master – Elizabeth Braden
Cast:
Claire Devon – Nicole Heaston
Paul Devon – Troy Cook
Ashley Devon – Lindsey Reynolds
Howard Bard – Kevin Burdette
Kyle Harris – Aaron Crouch
Angela Rose – Rehanna Thelwell
Dillon – John Moore
Hortense – Lucy Schaufer
Thom – Joseph Lim
Vince – Daniel Taylor
Danica – Diana Newman
Coyote – Sydney Donovan
Sina – Jessica Beebe
Emily – Taylor-Alexis DuPont
Bram – Zachary Altman
Theresa Alvarez – Guadalupe Paz
Mrs. Moreno – Alissa Anderson
Jess – Amanda Sheriff
Lee Ann – Lauren Cook