Opera is a big picture art form, less concerned with the moment than the millennia, and holding in the highest regard titles that date back centuries by the likes of Handel, Monteverdi, Mozart and Rossini.
So when a new and serious work comes along, the usual review questions — How good were the singers? How big were the sets? — aren’t so important.
Instead it is this: Will we ever see it again? In other words, will other companies go to the effort and expense to restage it so the piece moves into the standard repertoire and doesn’t disappear after one splashy run?
For composer Lori Laitman’s “The Scarlet Letter,” the answer to that is yes, or at least that’s a fair prediction, knowing the country’s opera makers, and its purveyors of musical theater, like pieces that are accessible, compelling and audience-pleasing. The work, which received its professional premiere from Opera Colorado Saturday night, has a broad appeal.
That is to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s credit, of course. The themes of moral injustice and religious intolerance he explored in his 1850 novel endure, and the sufferings he forced upon his famous heroine, Hester Prynne — at the hands of fundamentalist zealots, in the cross-hairs of dishonorable men — hurt in a way that feels relevant today.
But it’s also a nod to Laitman’s music and librettist David Mason’s words. They spin one of the best-known pieces of literature into a whole new form adding sensible and sensitive dimensions that shed new light on the story.
It’s hard to know what Hawthorne would make of their choices. Would he approve of Mason turning his dense, complicated sentences into tiny poems that actually rhyme? Other new operas, and they are increasing these days, skip this old-school song style in favor of more abstract dialogue.
Would he question Laitman’s approach to the narrative using lush, melodic settings that blend traditional classical forms with a contemporary Broadway punch? Other new operas are restrained and rely heavily on sonic dissonance, a tool Laitman uses sparingly.
But those other new operas are unlikely to be seen again. They might make for compelling nights at the theater, though they are a hard sell to posterity.
What Laitman and Mason understand, and respect, is the 21st century, and that opera is show businesses and that audiences want to be challenged but also entertained. And that difficult work can come in agreeable packages and maintain a high-quality.
Their Hawthorne update is dark and unrelenting, as it should be, and mercilessly damns New England Puritanism for all of its soulless piety. Their Hester, forced to wear the scarlet “A” for having child out of wedlock, remains fierce as a soprano, and their preacher Arthur Dimmesdale, the father in denial, is potently self-destructive in the form of a tenor.
Laitman gives these characters clear, individual motifs and they sound appropriate, especially the austere musical lines assigned to the chorus of unbending townspeople and the soaring, assertive high notes for Hester that show her resolve and underscore her moral superiority. Laitman’s background is as a writer of art songs, and that comes into play here. The singers get big numbers, to put it in musical theater language, that give them distinct identities.
Laitman’s style is to employ the powers of every instrument and every note at her disposal. There’s no hierarchy for strings or woodwinds in her approach, each section does its part to build the piece upward, including the piano. There are times when she might hold back, when the pulsing of notes and the swelling of sound threatens to turn the material manipulative.
But her composing voice is clear and confident, impassioned and likeable. If she overindulges, it is in the service of her end goal, which is to make beautiful music. Anyone who finds that disagreeable, or outmoded, doesn’t comprehend the human spirit.
Mason, the former poet laureate of Colorado, deconstructs Hawthorne’s thick prose with his own sure hand. He breaks the story into six sections, starting with Hester’s condemnation on the public scaffold and ending with Dimmedale’s demise on the same spot.
Condensing the work of a master into the peppery repartee needed for opera is like translating the “The Bible” from Latin to English via 140-character Twitter messages. Mason does it by holding true to Hawthorne’s key moments while taking the liberties poets get simply because they’re poets.
He does what he must to move the story along at the pace required for the stage, including the addition of segments meant to show the passing of time. As the chorus sings during set changes:
“Let years accumulate like trees,
the drifting snows, the darkening wood.
As springtime blows across the sea
we strive to comprehend the good.
Time is vaster than the earth.
Time is larger than our law.
Time before all human birth
and all we have no image for.”
This is rich material, smart, sparse and solid, and the cast and crew for this original production treat it with respect. Stage director Beth Greenberg takes a straightforward approach, avoiding any antics and placing the singers where they can be heard and seen. Costume designer Therese Wadden dresses them in pared-down versions of Puritan garb that keep them shrouded but let them move and sing.
Erhard Rom’s set are stark and engaging, highlighted by two giant slabs of what appears to be precast concrete, twice as tall as any human, pivoting back and forth to make the setting appear wide-open, as it does in a forest scene, and downright claustrophobic, as it is when the action moves to a prison. Robert Wierzel, Amith Chandrashaker and Topher Blair play subtlety with the lights and projections — until they don’t, placing Hester under the glare of something akin to an interrogation lamp during her sentencing scene.
Opposing that coolness is the go-for-broke singing of Laura Claycomb, Dominic Armstrong, Malcolm MacKenzie and Margaret Gawrysiak in the featured roles. These singers were cast for their ability to deliver the kind of melodic drama Laitman constructs and there’s no holding them back. Conductor Ari Peltohonors Laitman’s democratic approach to composing and reaches deep into every section to pull the most out of the orchestra. He knows when to put on the brakes and when to pump up the volume.
At the core of all their efforts is a respect for the composer and librettist, a total submission to the creators’ intentions. When opera companies do old works, it’s about the production, the singers, the showing off. When they do new ones, it’s about finding the work’s truths, of defining its essence, selling the source material earnestly, so, just maybe, it can outlast two weeks in the city of its birth.
Who knows, really, if the “The Scarlet Letter” lives on. But we can definitely say that Denver gave it a good shot, that the big picture was clearly in view at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House last weekend.
Opera Colorado’s “The Scarlet Letter” will be presented May 10, 13 and 15. Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Denver Performing Arts Complex. $20-$160. 303-468-2030 or operacolorado.org.
Ray Mark Rinaldi: 303-954-1540, rrinaldi@denverpost.com or @rayrinaldi
