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Eric
SAWYER (b. 1962) Our American Cousin (2007) [132:20]
Janna
Baty (mezzo) – Laura Keene; Alan Schneider (tenor) – Harry
Hawk; Aaron Engebreth (baritone) – Jack Matthews; Drew
Poling (baritone) – Ned Emerson; Donald Wilkinson (baritone) – Abraham
Lincoln; Angela Hines Gooch (soprano) – Mary Lincoln;
Tom O’Toole (bass-baritone) – John Wilkes Booth; Hillarie
O’Toole (soprano) – Gussy Mountchessington; Janice
Edwards (mezzo) - Lady Mountchessington; Daniel Kamalic
(baritone) – Doctor Leale
The Amherst College Concert Choir/Mallorie Chernin.
Boston Modern Orchestra Project/Gil Rose
rec. Buckley Hall, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts,
USA, 1-2 April 2007. DDD. BOSTON
MODERN ORCHESTRA PROJECT BMOP1006 [67:00
+ 65:20]
Just
in time for the 200th anniversary of the birth
of Abraham Lincoln comes this ambitious opera from American
composer Eric Sawyer and librettist John Shoptaw. This
is courtesy of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, an
exciting program of releases focusing on modern American
music.
Sawyer’s “Our
American Cousin” takes its name and part of its plot from
an American comedy of the 1850s by that name.It
was being performed by Laura Keene’s traveling players
at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D. C. the night Lincoln
attended and was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. Sawyer’s
opera does not set the original play. Rather, the opera
toys with the conventions of a play-within-a-play structure,
by portraying the actors putting on this play and some
of the audience members, including Lincoln and his wife,
and Booth. Interestingly, though, the emphasis is not on
the delusional Booth but on the split between the “real” world
and the “artificial” world of theatre. But, as Shakespeare
famously said, “All the world’s a stage,” thus blurring
the boundaries and giving the work some nice opportunities
for surrealistic touches.
For
instance, within this context, it is easy to stop the action
and let a character go into an internal monologue. Lincoln
does this at one point in the middle of the “performance” on
stage. Also, this allows for the spectral reappearance
of Lincoln at the end of the work, after the assassination,
in an aria where the musical instruments gradually fall
away, leaving the confused, bemused shade singing alone,
unconsoled by any music but his own thoughts.
Earlier
parts of the opera veer back and forth between backstage
conversations, and the play being performed. The thorough
notes included with this release explain that the play
presented here is based on the original play, but is heavily
rewritten to relieve its hopelessly dated style. It remains
a corny piece, about an American bumpkin returning to Europe
to claim an inheritance. Backstage lurks Booth, who is
not performing in the comedy that evening, though as a
well-known actor, he has run of the theatre.
What
this work portrays is not what Booth is doing, but instead
how the players are caught up in what Booth does. Janna
Baty sings Laura Keene, the director of the company and
female lead of the comedy. It is she who invites the President
to the show, and opens it with an address to the audience
inviting them to forget the world that evening and enjoy
the comedy. After the shooting, she cradles the President’s
head in her lap, leaving her covered with his blood at
the end of the opera, when she is left alone on stage to
witness his spirit. Baty sings compellingly, shaping the
different layers of stage character, professional performer,
and grieving, guilt-ridden witness. Her foil in the comedy
is the American bumpkin Asa, who is played by an actor
named Henry Hawk. Hawk is sung by Alan Schneider. He covers
a wide range between the guffaws of the backwoods rube
of the comedy and his real life, backstage. There he reels
with the news that the substitute he paid to fight for
him in the Civil War has been killed in battle. Schneider
does particularly well pulling off the difficult feat of
portraying a twangy hick in full operatic voice. Sometimes
he can’t avoid sounding a little too polished, but within
the context of the role, it works.
What
is a little more awkward is the portrayal of Lincoln, surely
a thankless task, as we all have our own preconceptions
about how he may have sounded. The traditionally pompous
portrayal of Lincoln in American movies and television
commercials gives him a grand bass voice and neutral speech
pattern. The historical record tells quite a different
story, describing Lincoln’s oratorical voice as high tenor,
nasal, and strongly accented of the frontier. In an attempt
to avoid both preconceptions, Sawyer opts to cast the president
as a baritone. But the libretto, nodding to history, allows
for some of Lincoln’s Midwest twang. Unfortunately, this
leaves singer Donald Wilkinson with the task of playing
a deeply serious character in an opera with a backwoods
accent. Wilkinson does what he can, but seems stuck halfway
between dramatically committing to a full-blown character
and honoring the accurate technical polish of standard
operatic style. The character remains elusive.
More
dramatically successful are Janice Edwards as Lady Mountchessington,
the play’s greedy dowager. Edwards, not saddled with playing
an onstage and offstage level - as she’s only seen in the
play performance sections - jumps full force into characterizing
her role, as does Hillarie O’Toole, playing her daughter
Gussy. Angela Hines Gooch has a tart voice, but it is perfect
for Mary Todd Lincoln, alternately doting on her husband
and being distracted by her own mania.
One
of my favorite parts of the work is toward the end of Act
One. In Scene 4, various audience members arrive — nurses,
amputees, businessmen, freedmen, women —
and
sing a capella as each group takes its seats. Though
beautiful, it seems a bit stilted and artificial at first,
though staging might help that. It works musically when
the choral groups return to join in the free-for-all at
the end of Scene 5. This starts out as a backstage rehearsal
of a drinking song and ends up cartwheeling out of control,
only to be cut off by Ms. Keene herself. It’s a glorious
mish-mash of Americana, and I wish it had lasted longer.
Outstanding
arias include Hawk’s “Walking a Corduroy Road,” voicing
the character’s nightmare about searching for the body
of his draft substitute on the battlefield. Lincoln’s aria
is gorgeously sung by Wilkinson, even if dramatically it
remains enigmatic. Tom O’Toole’s delightfully sinister
Booth makes one wish that Booth had been more of the focus
here, even if that would make for a more predictable piece.
Baty’s shell-shocked rendition of Laura Keene’s final aria “Blood
Stains” is chilling.
Shoptaw’s
libretto is colorful and poetic throughout, even if occasionally
a touch wayward. It offers a lot of charm and shifts from
serious to farcical and back with grace. Sawyer’s music
is at its best where it wears its learning lightly, as
in the audience choral numbers, the drinking song scene,
or in some of the longer arias, where there is room for
Sawyer’s extended tonality to expand and explore. Sawyer’s
teachers include Leon Kirchner, Tison Street and Andrew
Imbrie, and, boy, does it show. There is rather too much
self-consciously learned technique here for my taste, and
not enough naked response to what is happening. Sawyer’s
extended tonality bogs down dialogue and crowd scenes where
the action needs to take on a life of its own.
Perhaps
part of the problem also stems from this recording being
made after a concert presentation of the opera, but before
its premiere staging in 2008. It lacks the frisson of “finding
its legs” on stage, leaving it sounding studio-bound and
tentative in places, particularly where individual singers
and choral singers sound too correct, too coached, and
not truly dramatic. Gil Rose guides it all with a firm
hand, and the Boston Modern Orchestra does a fine job giving
us our first glimpse of an intriguing piece.
Lest
anything above be taken too harshly, remember that a work
this ambitious can have some flaws but still be absolutely
worthwhile, and “Our American Cousin” is. Everyone involved
is to be commended for daring to take on something this
grand, something with this much meaning, this much bittersweet
food for thought.
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