Gordon GETTY (b.1933)
Usher House, Opera in one Act (2014)
Christian Elsner (tenor) – Edgar Allan Poe; Etienne Dupuis (baritone) – Roderick Usher; Phillip Ens (bass) – Doctor Primus; Lisa Delan (soprano) – Madeline Usher; Benedict Cumberbatch (actor) – The Attendant
Orchestra Gulbenkian/Lawrence Foster
rec. September 2011, Grand Auditorium of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon
Full English text provided, Notes in English, French, German
PENTATONE PTC5186451 SACD [67.00]
Pentatone Classics has re-released its 2011 recording of Getty’s Opera Usher House in its original SACD packaging. The original release occurred before the opera had been staged. In 2015 the opera received its world premiere in Cardiff, where it was paired with Claude Debussy’s unfinished opera La chute de la Maison d’Usher in a recent completion by Robert Orledge. Later that same year Getty’s opera received its North American premiere in San Francisco paired again with the Debussy work. Critics don’t seem to have been enthusiastic about either of the operas. Mr Getty was previously inspired by Poe’s 1839 short story The Fall of the House of Usher to create a ballet on the subject from which his Ancestor Suite is derived.
It would be tempting to compare Getty’s opera with Phillip Glass’ 1987 operatic take on the Edgar Allan Poe story, but this would be like comparing apples to oranges as the Glass work is a minimalist composition where the music and dramatic action are rather remote from one another. Getty’s work has more similarity in style to Mexican composer Daniel Catán’s opera Rappaccini’s Daughter, another opera inspired by a gothic horror story; in that case it was taken from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story first published in 1844. There is an excellent recording of the Catán opera available on the Newport Classics label #NPD85623/2 which is worth hearing for comparison. Both operas seem to use a chamber-sized orchestra with an extremely moody orchestral atmosphere. As an opera I find that Getty’s revision of Poe’s story to be interesting, but it is very wordy and descriptive in nature and I fear that it would not come off all that well in a staged performance. As such, it makes an ideal opera for armchair listening. In Getty’s version of the story Edgar Allan Poe becomes one of the main characters and is in fact in love with the heroine Madeline Usher.
Getty’s orchestra expresses most of the dramatic action of the opera with the characters filling in the details to give context to the story. Getty is very successful in conveying mood such as the clever way in which the orchestra conveys the miasmic haze that envelops Usher House from the tarn on which it is built. There are some wonderful slithery groans from the muted brass to represent the supernatural Doctor Primus, who bears a strong musical resemblance to the Mephistophelean Dr Miracle in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann. The character of Madeline Usher is not heard from until the end of the opera. Whenever the subject of her is brought up, an interesting passage appears played by the xylophone which relates to a line sung by Edgar “Beauty and grace hung in the air like chimes”. Like so much of this score I find the orchestration to be rich in details and at times pungent in the overall texture.
The vocal writing I find to be less revealing. A great deal of the singer’s lines are used to describe things that have occurred in the past, which actually does nothing much for the drama; still there is a top notch cast that were engaged for this recording. German tenor Christian Elsner is a real find as Edgar Allan Poe. His tenor has a clarity and ring to the sound and there is absolutely no hint of unsteadiness in his voice. Poe is a tenor role flies rather high and wide and Mr Elsner gives no hint of hesitation in accomplishing it. He is particularly admirable in his one aria which describes a verse he wrote about Madeline (Track 3). In Getty’s revision of the story Roderick Usher is the heart and soul of this opera. He is magnificently rendered by French Canadian baritone Etienne Dupuis. He approaches the role with the sensitivity required for lieder or chansons. His tone is gorgeously free and full and he sings with a continual attention to the shifting moods of Roderick so that troubled man jumps vividly to life from the speakers. Phillip Ens, another Canadian, is a suitably dark and menacing Doctor Primus. His firm tone of plush velvet is quite simply just what the Doctor ordered for a role which is not troubled by much in the way of character depth. Lisa Delan doesn’t get to display much of her voice in the opera, but her vocalise at the end of the opera is most effective. The same could be said for the short speaking role of the attendant, for whom actor Benedict Cumberbatch was engaged. His lines consist of announcing a few of the guests who are attending a ball. Lawrence Foster leads the orchestra with a strong sense of purpose which is matched by an orchestra which is quite responsive to his leadership. The sound captured by the engineering team has excellent presence which is vital in this work as the orchestra is very much another character in the drama. I sampled the recording in its two channel stereo format only and therefore cannot comment on the multichannel sound quality.
Ultimately this opera is fatally flawed by its text; however, it is fun to listen to if one doesn’t demand too much of the work. For a more immersive experience I prefer Catán’s opera Rappaccini’s Daughter captures the gothic mood with equal effectiveness but achieves much more dramatic success than this one.
Mike Parr
