SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Estacio, Lillian Alling (World Premiere):  Soloists, Orchestra and Chorus of Vancouver Opera, Jacques Lacombe (conductor), Kelly Robinson (director), Sue LePage (set and costume designer), Sean Nieuwenhuis and Tim Matheson (projection co-designers), Harry Frehner (lighting designer), Andrew Tugwell (sound designer), Leslie Dala (chorus director), Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver, British Columbia, 19.10.2010 (BJ)


By the end of the evening (this was actually the second performance in a run of four, the actual premiere having taken place on 16 October), this new work commissioned by Vancouver Opera from composer John Estacio and librettist John Murrell had established itself as a creation of considerable dramatic potency and much musical interest.

The third product of the same composer/librettist team (in succession to Filumena and Frobisher), the new opera tells the story of a immigrant who arrived in the US from Russia many years ago, in search of a man named Joz�f Nikitich Lazinsky, who had come to the States earlier. The story is told by an old woman named Irene to her son, Jimmy, as he gathers her possessions together and drives her from the mountains of British Columbia to the city, where she will be able to receive the care her declining health makes necessary. There is a surprise ending, which I have been asked not to reveal�on the subject, I shall only say that as a reader of detective stories who is hardly ever able to identify the culprit before All Is Revealed, I remained equally happily in the dark in this instance until the moment when the work�s authors saw fit to enlighten me.

Clearly, the Estacio/Murrell collaboration is a highly professional and proficient one. The libretto is lucid, and moves the action along at a satisfying pace, and the music adds just as it should to the intensity of a humanly fascinating tale. The only weakness, it seems to me, is that the persons of the drama are not vividly characterized by musical means�a few telling phrases aside, they all sing the same kind of music. I suppose the composer might well be able to point out, in the score, facets that differentiate Jimmy�s, Irene�s, Lillian�s, and the other characters� lines. But just as in the case of Elliott Carter�s much more cerebral distinctions of one instrument�s music from another�s, what may be clear on the page does not make itself felt to at least this listener�s ear. But Estacio�s music, broadly tonal in idiom, has both melodic charm and rhythmic zest.

For the first half hour, I felt that something about the relation between voices and orchestra was not working out well. Only isolated snatches of each character�s utterances actually made themselves heard. It�s not easy, judging from one hearing of a newly written work, to tell whether this was the fault of the actual writing or of the performers. But in any case the impression soon receded, and by the end the vocal/instrumental balance was much more satisfactory. The vocal lines, meanwhile, if not powerfully individualized, were grateful and at times searingly expressive, and the extensive choral writing�strongly realized by Leslie Dala�s excellent chorus�made a much stronger and more coherent impression than that in the last contemporary opera I saw in Vancouver, John Adams�s Nixon in China. Equally impressive was the orchestral work under Jacques Lacombe�s baton.

Sue LePage�s inventive sets and sensible costumes were highly effective. (It was rather amusing, just two days after witnessing Lucia di Lammermoor in Seattle, to find myself faced with another operatic scene filled with umbrellas.) Projections were used with good results, and the progress of the narrative in the second of the two acts, much of it furthered without voices, was grippingly presented.

Outstanding in a large cast were the performances of Roger Honeywell as Jimmy, Judith Forst as Irene, Colin Ainsworth in several smaller roles, and Aaron St. Clair Nicholson as Scotty MacDonald, who falls in love with Lillian. Fr�d�rique V�zina made a dramatically convincing and most attractive Lillian, but I felt she was not entirely at her ease with the vocal line she was called on to sing: her voice, though appealing in timbre, did not always dominate as it needed to.

Whether Lillian Alling is a masterpiece for the ages is a question that may be safely left for the ages to answer. But it has much to offer for audiences of today, and I hope it will reach a reasonable number of them.

Bernard Jacobson