|
Critical Commentary from World Premiere
Performances
at Houston Grand Opera
There is much that is admirable in [Resurrection],
especially in the sonoroties emanating from the pit. The composer,
who has made a specialty of electronically generated sounds,
also proved a fine orchestrator, and produced ravishing combinations
of the two media. His vocal writing was interesting, too...Abundant
lyricism...Braham Murray's apt direction was well supported by
Simon Higlett's set and costume designs and Chris Parry's lighting.
Patrick Summers, the company's music director, conducted, making
the most of that roiling activity in the pit. Scott Hendricks
and, especially, Joyce DiDonato were effective in the lead roles...On
the strength of enterprising music and drama, the work deserves
another life.
James Oestreich, The New York
Times, 4/28/99
Machover's music inventively combines aspects
of classical and rock music, of video and computer technology.
He's been involved with M.I.T.'s famous Media Lab since 1985,
and before that was a director of Pierre Boulez's experimental
music institute in Paris. But he also had a serious classical
education at the hands of two major - and very different - American
composers, Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions. So maybe it shouldn't
be as surprising as it seems that Machover's latest project is
a traditional opera based on a 19th century Russian novel. Leo
Tolstoy's "Resurrection" is a very great book, a frontal
assault on judicial and penal systems, on moral numbness and
inhumanity, and the possibility of individual redemption...The
score to Resurrection is Machover's richest and most varied.
From minimalism and rock, he's learned to create pounding, pulsating
rhythms that build to ferocious climaxes. And he has his own
genius for soaring melody and dazzling color and texture. The
solo trumpet crying out in the Seduction Scene is harrowing.
Electronic keyboards put an almost inaudible halo around the
vocal line and provide an eerie chill to the Siberian landscape.
The melodies have a subtle, Russian melisma. In the most haunting
moment in the opera, Katusha - played by the outstanding young
mezzo-soprano, Joyce DiDonato - sings an electronically amplified,
yet heartbreakingly simple lullaby to the child of one of the
chained prisoners. Baritone Scott Hendricks makes a vivid hero,
caught between egoism and altruism. Tenor Raymond Very is stirring
as a brutally flogged prisoner in love with Katusha. Houston
Grand Opera music director Patrick Summers conducts with dramatic
urgency. The chorus, with a lot to do, is excellent...including
a moving Prisoners March...Machover is an idealist; like Tolstoy,
he wants to change the way we act in the world ...Resurrection
is a serious and powerful work, a milestone for Tod Machover,
and a noble achievement of the Houston Grand Opera.
Lloyd Schwartz, National Public
Radio "Fresh Air" and Boston Phoenix, 5/3/99
Resurrection [is] a setting of Leo Tolstoy's
dense, speculative novel on the redemption of souls, calling
for - and receiving with remarkable success - musical treatment
along traditional Romantic operatic lines. Tolstoy is said to
have detested opera as an encumbrance to his words; previous
treatments of Resurrection, including a lurid misrepresentation
by Franco Alfano that reduces Tolstoy's moralizings to soap opera,
justify his distaste. For the 45-year-old New York-born Machover,
librettists Laura Harrington and Braham Murray have provided
a more honorable, literate treatment of Tolstoy's basically actionless
probing of guilt and salvation. Machover, in turn, has given
their words a richly intelligent setting, gritty at times but
soaring, intensely lyrical at others...Up to now, Machover's
fame has been fashioned from his electronic inventions as head
of musical matters at M.I.T.'s Media Laboratory - including the
interactive "cyber-cello" he built for Yo-Yo Ma. Perhaps
his creation of a full-scale opera on a Tolstoy novel - scored
for traditional orchestra with only a smidge of electronic touch-up
here and there, managing with sure musical insights the novel's
tense, dark emotions - may strike his cutting-edge confreres
as a backsliding. Whatever, it's a work of genuine originality,
remarkably skillful in the vocal writing, its music imaginatively
tinged with a light wash of Mussorgsky here, and Prokofiev there.
It adds to the paltry store of worthwhile new operas a work of
great attractiveness and power. Resurrection sounds the
convincing note of belief that opera just might have a future.
Alan Rich, LA Weekly &
MSN Classical Music Website, 5/3/99
Tod Machover 's opera Resurrection turns
out to be one of the more traditional new operas to appear recently,
boasting a tonal-sounding score, skillful and unusually melodic
writing for voice, and a linear story based on a novel by Tolstoy.
Mr. Machover and his librettist, Laura Harrington, played down
the political in favor of the personal, and focused their opera
on the relationship between Nekhlyudov (Scott Hendricks) and
Maslova (Joyce DiDonato) and their respective "resurrections."
The plot exposition of Act I is handled cleverly: The trial is
interspersed with swift flashbacks to Nekhlyudov's earlier encounters
with Maslova. This first scene is also musically one of the most
successful in the piece. It begins, startlingly, with a reference
to the opening of Bach's "St. Matthew Passion," but
continues with a level of rhythmic complexity and constant change
that sounds more like Steve Reich. The speed and urgency of the
trial portions of the scene segue smoothly into a folksy Russian
dance for the protagonists' first meeting, then into a rhapsodic
love duet, and finally into brassy viciousness for the rape.
Scene 2 is different: This portrait of Nekhlyudov's fiancee,
Missy (Kerri Marcinko), and her aristocratic family is more like
a comic opera by Rossini, with Ms. Marcinko flawlessly delivering
the sparkling coloratura roulades that emphasize Missy's shallowness
and lack of sympathy with Nekhlyudov's new ideals. Act II, which
takes place in Siberia, is constructed from incidents taken from
different parts of the novel. Nekhlyudov follows Maslova to Siberia,
where she is redeemed by association with the political prisoners,
and decides to marry one of them, even after her pardon is secured.
Mr. Machover clearly had fun constructing the opening half-hour-long
scene, which features a heavy, bass-accented march for the transported
prisoners, interspersed with incidents dramatizing the cruelty
of their plight...The electronic aspects of the score were more
apparent in Act II. Maslova's haunting lullaby, "O that
I were where I would be," was accompanied exclusively and
quite beautifully by eerie, manufactured sounds. The ominous
prelude to the flogging also got an otherworldly character from
electronics, and the flogging itself, off-the-beat like the guillotine
in Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites," was computer-generated.
After the premiere, Mr. Machover commented that the computerized
keyboards operate at almost all times in the score, and that
their primary function is to emphasize certain orchestral gestures
without calling attention to themselves. The result was an orchestra
that not only sounded acoustic, but larger than it was. Another
intriguing element was the excellent balance between pit and
stage. Singers were never drowned out, due in part to the sensitive
work by conductor Patrick Summers, but also to the use of some
electronic rather than acoustic doubling of voices. The production,
designed by Simon Higlett (sets and costumes) and Chris Parry
(lighting) and directed by Braham Murray, who also contributed
to the libretto, coped efficiently with the multiple scenes for
the flashbacks of Act I. It also provided a bright, snowy landscape
for Siberia, and used handsome, period-style costumes to suggest
the opulent, thoughtless lives of the aristocrats and the degradation
of the prisoners.
Heidi Waleson, Wall Street
Journal, 5/4/99
Faithful to its policy of premieres, the Houston
Grand Opera has done things on a grand scale for the world premiere
- the 24th in its history - of Resurrection, the new opera
by American composer Tod Machover, received triumphantly by the
Texan public...What makes Resurrection original, and allows
it to frequently skirt around the pitfall of the familiar, is
the use of electro-acoustic techniques, with three synthesizers
in the pit which, doubling the traditional instruments or lying
above them subtly, amplifies and enriches the sonorities of the
orchestra and, above all, completely changes its colors...Resurrection
keeps our attention from one end to the other, seduces us, impresses
us (the convicts in Siberia), even excites us (Katerina's magnificent
lullaby, sustained by electronic instruments only), and this
accomplished by music perfectly integrated with the action.
Richard Martet, Opera International,
6/99 (translated from French)
[In Resurrection], Machover has made
something new in music theater...There's an urgency in the animated
score, which runs just over two hours. The music is tonal, bewitchingly
beautiful and totally engaging. There are sections that might
be labeled "aria" or "chorus", but essentially
the music flows without interruption and it never flags. Perhaps
the originality of the score lies in Machover's approach. Other
composers describe what is happening; Machover's music results
from events. "Its something new even for me," he says.
"I've tried to convey musically the gradual process of spiritual
reawakening, to write the kind of music that happens when people
start caring for each other." Rarely is the audience for
a new opera as enthusiastic as the crowd in Houston's Wortham
Center for Resurrection.
Wes Blomster, Sunday Boulder
Camera, 5/2/99
Tod Machover set a libretto by Laura Harrington
that simplifies and clarifies Tolstoy's text. There is a series
of arias for the two principals, which Machover binds into a
seamless whole...Driving, pulsating intensity...At its best,
Resurrection makes a powerful impression...Baritone Scott
Hendricks, who took over the role of the Prince at short notice,
gave an extremely assured performance. Mezzo Joyce DiDonato,
a graduate of the Houston Opera Studio, chosen early on as the
"resurrected prostitute Maslova, sang the demanding but
rewarding role with great beauty and strength. Tenor Raymond
Very appeared in two roles, making his best impression as the
political prisoner, while conductor Patrick Summers, adept at
balancing electronic elements with the acoustic ones, held the
complex whole together...The Houston audience accepted it enthusiastically.
Patrick J. Smith, Opera News,
10/99
Machover's rich orchestral palette and high
level of rhythmic inventiveness works especially well in the
first act; the musical language of Act II owes more to Machover,s
electronic interests. One haunting lullaby is accompanied exclusively
and quite beautifully by eerie, manufactured sounds. This, it
turned out, was deliberate - a musical means of differentiating
the fallen world and the one striving towards rebirth. After
the premiere, Machover commented that the computerised keyboards
operate at almost all times in the score, and that their primary
function is to emphasize certain orchestral gestures without
calling attention to themselves. Another useful result was the
excellent balance between pit and stage, due to electronic rather
than acoustic doubling of voices...Tod Machover may well be the
future, particularly since he can actually write music for singers.
Heidi Waleson, BBC Music Magazine,
7/99
Tod Machover's new opera, Resurrection,
an adaptation of Tolstoy's novel, has been about a decade in
the making - a long wait, but definitely worth it...Particular
reason for excitement was in the composer's innovative composition
technique which includes use of computers and hyperinstruments,,
Machover,s own invention - computers that can be played, like
musical instruments, transforming the sound of traditional instruments
and voices as they are played. Machover's musical language seems
not to be concerned with whizzes, pops and other technological
sound effects however; rather it crosses artistic boundaries,
creating a synthesis of the acoustic and the electronic. So,
although 95 per cent of the piece included computer collaboration,
the result, although subtly different from normal acoustic sound,
is hypnotic, beautiful, and very effective...[There is] marvelous
characterisation of the central characters, retained as the focal
point of the whole opera and thus keeping the structure steady.
Here Joyce DiDonato as Katerina Maslova and Scott Hendricks as
Prince Nekhlyudov produced a complete performance, singing and
acting to the highest standard. Maslova is a role of terrifying
complexity and diversity and DiDonato coped with its many transformations
and delivered one of the most powerful performances I can remember.
Matthew Peacock, Opera Now,
8/99
Tolstoy's ''Resurrection,'' published just a
hundred years ago, in its day outsold ''War and Peace'' and ''Anna
Karenina.'' It's a powerful novel, to shatter the calm and the
conscience of any reader who lives comfortably in a capitalist
society. It finally preaches, from Matthew V and XVII, Christ's
doctrine of acceptance and forgiveness of injuries; it satirizes
a materially compromised Church; on the simple narrative level
it's the tale of a prince and a prostitute. On that level, Alfano
composed his ''Risurrezione'': Katusha as the shining redeemer
of the nobleman who wronged her. Machover and his librettist,
Laura Harrington, aimed higher, hewed closer to Tolstoy, included
more of the characters and the action, and made more of Prince
Dmitri Nekhludov, the man in need of redemption and resurrection.
Their task was not easy. Tolstoy himself, we're told, was uncertain
how things might end and even played games of patience to determine
whether Katusha should marry her repentant prince or her fellow
prisoner Simonson. The games didn't come out; Tolstoy decided
at last to unite Katusha with Simonson. ''Resurrection'' is a
great novel with some untidy, arbitrary action and much moralizing,
but it is passionately felt, and it stirs passionate response.
The opera is in two acts, of about 76 and 50 minutes. Act 1,
a series of short scenes, intercuts Katusha's trial for murder
(Dmitri is a member of the jury) with flashbacks to their first
meeting, the seduction, etc; these are followed by Dmitri's prison
visits, and his decision to change his life and save Katusha.
(Pages of Tolstoy are condensed into the single line ''Divide
my land, equally, among the peasants.'') Much of this is set
to arioso declamation - with bold, attractive melismatic extensions
of syllables over moto perpetuo movement. But it's tricky,
restless moto perpetuo, with time signatures that tend to change
every measure. In Act 2, the march to Siberia, the numbers become
longer: a massive choral march, whose tread continues through
Dmitri and Katusha's re-encounter; her beautiful folk-lullaby
over a convict child; Dmitri's ''awakening'' aria; Simonson's
fervent sermon ''You change the world one man to another ...Everyone
can do it''; Katusha and Dmitri's octave restatement of that
assertation in their farewell duet...An orchestra of 32 was given
extra colors by three synthesizer keyboards; natural and electronic
sounds were blended in masterly fashion. The presentation was
first-rate, well sung, and stirringly acted. As Katusha, mezzo
Joyce DiDonato poured out true, steady, shining tone through
every register, with never a squall or scream. She was moving.
Baritone Scott Hendricks's Dmitri was nobly, firmly, romantically
sung. As Simonson, Raymond Very's tenor rang ardently. Katherine
Ciesinski, Judith Christin, James Holloway, and Dale Travis were
notable in smaller roles. It was a true company performance,
with the three principals and several others alumni or present
members of the Houston Opera Studio. Houston's new music director,
Patrick Summers, led a sure-paced, confident performance. A British
production team - director Braham Murray from Manchester's Royal
Exchange Theatre, designer Simon Higlett, lighting designer Chris
Parry - achieved a handsome, straightforward staging. The new
opera was warmly received.
Andrew Porter, Boston Globe
and London Times Literary Supplement, 5/6/99
The Houston Grand Opera is the beneficiary of
a subtle and sophisticated new work by Tod Machover, [who] has
probably done more than any of his contemporaries to explore
the applications of technology to an art form notorious for its
Luddite tendencies. In Valis (1987), based on a science
fiction novel by Philip K. Dick, and hailed as the first computer
opera, the action actually takes place in one person's head.
In the even more 'wired' Brain Opera (1996), the audience
wanders through an interactive fun house, helping to create a
work in progress by playing on a variety of ingeniously concocted
electronic instruments. Resurrection, Machover's new work
for Houston, continues his technological explorations but on
a much subtler, less immediately apparent level by seeking to
achieve an organic blend of electronic with acoustically produced
sounds. On its surface, Resurrection resembles nothing
so much as a grand Russian opera in the 19th century tradition,
complete with arias and choruses and outfitted with an...uplifting
finale...As horrified as modernist critics have been by this
finale, it is perhaps as true to the Tolstoy novel upon which
the opera is based as anything else in the score. Machover adopts
an approach to composition that's obedient to his subject. Written
near the end of the great novelist's life, "Resurrection"
tells the tale of a profligate prince who sets an innocent girl
on the path to prostitution by seducing her, only to find the
road to his personal salvation by trying to make amends. It is
a novel ecstatic in its final pages with hope, and, judging by
the cheers with which Houstonians have been greeting the musical
setting, Machover has found in traditionally tuneful tonality
a suitable complement to Tolstoy's blush-inducing prose. Nothing
could have been more different from the hyper-emotional, ultra-lyrical
style he adopted in this final scene than the hectically busy,
texturally complex, metrically restless sounds of the first act.
But again, this seemed a logical reflection of the novel's change
in tone as Prince Dmitry Nekhlyudov moves from the corrupt urban
world of his aristocratic class to his Siberian adventure in
self-discovery. What Machover has done, in other words, is adopt
an approach to composition as obedient to the character of his
subject as was his approach to both Valis and Brain
Opera, offering a timely reminder along the way that people,
not technology, are his real subject.
William Littler, Toronto Star,
5/8/99
Tod Machover's reinvention of Tolstoy's fable
of Russia's turn-of-the-century justic system is presented with
enough zeal that even the Russian author, who hated opera, would
approve. With Braham Murray's stage direction, Machover's work
is a panoramic feast. It takes viewers inside Russia's courts
and dirty jails, and finally to the frigid horrors of Siberian
exile. The composer's musical style emerges in a few suspenseful,
violent scenes. With sinister rhythms, the music creates an aura
of the spiritually dead, faithful to Tolstoy and acquiescent
to the couple's redemption. The show never feels derivative,
and the dramatic performances of the all-American cast are inspiring...Machover's
stunning visions achieve sympathy between the audience and those
persecuted on stage. For Tolstoy, the act of writing War and
Peace and Anna Karenina drove him to peel away the stifling cocoon
of his aristocratic life. Giving up his country estate, the author
rook to making his own shoes and donned the blouse of a Russian
peasant. In this cynical age, the message is potent.
Cynthia Greenwood, Houston
Press, 5/29/99
Among his many titles at the Media Lab at M.I.T.,
Tod Machover is head of Opera of the Future. And that is exactly
where he belongs. Machover's new opera, Resurrection,
is the work of a cyberartist who has found in Tolstoy's last
novel a route back to the future...Certainly Tolstoy's Russia
of 1899 resonates now in our own fin de siecle. It was impossible
Friday night not to connect the horrific march of Siberian prisoners
on the Wortham Theater stage with pictures from Kosovo...Machover
has a gift for making music that is direct and complicated at
the same time, for mixing popular and arcane elements. He often
teases us with a captivating tune we never can quite fully grasp
through a riot of bouncing rhythms and a carnival of special
effects. The vocal writing [of Resurrection] often dazzles
with grand melismatic flourishes; jazz tumults through the brutish
seduction scene; a gripping rhythmic pulse catapults through
ever-changing meters. The second act takes place in Siberia and
here Machover's music, slow and atmospheric, begins to haunt.
This is the 24th new opera that Houston has created, and its
resources are admirable. Baritone Scott Hendricks (Nekhlyudov)
was plucked from the company's Opera Studio training program
and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato (Maslova) is a former member.
Both bloomed thrillingly as the course of Nekhlyudov's obsessive
love unfolded.
Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 4/26/99
Machover has created a score driven by insistent,
restless rhythmic energy. Constantly shifting meters created
urgency while avoiding the monotony of a Philip Glass work. The
music was fundamentally tonal with dissonance used liberally
for mood and effect. For moments of quietude and reflection,
mainly for arias and duets, Machover opted for an overpared harmonic
language...Being best known for his work in electronics ("Brain
Opera" and hyperinstruments), Machover combined a traditional
opera orchestra with electronics. They enhanced the sound overall,
added color and occasionally created atmosphere by themselves.
The blending was effective and completely unself-conscious.
Charles Ward, Houston Chronicle,
4/26/99
Tod Machover's Resurrection is a bifurcated
work that assaults the ears and then caresses them. The first
of two acts does, indeed, have some intense dissonance and jagged
vocal lines. But in the second act's Siberia, not only Prince
Nekhlyudov and Katerina Maslova, but also Mr..Machover, are transformed.
A distinctly more lyrical style becomes the dominant musical
idiom. Not that the first act is all grinding dissonance. The
opera's first shocker is a passage in the instrumental prelude
that sounds like the opening of Bach's "St. Matthew Passion"
as rethought by a modern composer. One festive chorus sounds
almost folksy. But the second act is consistently more calming,
with some pleasing choral writing and beautiful music for the
female lead. Mr. Machover is circumspect in his use of electronic
music. The main performing force is a conventional orchestra,
and the electronics are subtly blended...A musically cohesive
evening.
Olin Chism, Dallas Morning
News, 4/26/99
"Tod Machover - Giving Music a Makeover",
Spring 1999, Opera Cues
"An Opera Lures a Futurist Back to the Present",
April 18, 1999, Kyle Gann, The New York Times
"Composers Mining the Music of Their Youth",
April 18, 1999, Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
"Houston Brings Tod Machover's Resurrection to
Life", April 18, 1999, Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe
"Tolstoy Transformed", April 18, 1999, Charles
Ward, Houston Chronicle
"The Marriage of Tech and Opera", April
23, 1999, David Kushner, Wired News
"On The Beat", March 1999, Brian Kellow.
Opera News
|
