I hope it’s not terribly sacrilegious of me to admit this…. but in the midst of what has been an especially meaningful Holy Week, with one moving worship service after another,  my thoughts have returned again and again to “A Streetcar Named Desire”.  The Tennessee Williams play has been a favorite of mine ever since I saw it at the Racine Theater Guild many years ago- and seeing the magnificent Vivian Leigh/ Kim Hunter/ Marlon Brando film only sealed the deal.    But then this past Tuesday evening,  I was privileged to experience the play’s operatic version by Andre Previn in a memorable production at the Lyric Opera starring Renee Fleming.  I first saw the opera when its San Francisco world premiere was telecast 15 years ago, but seeing and hearing it in person was far more powerful and moving.

Chances are that you know the story of the faded Southern belle Blanche DuBois,  who has been driven by one heartbreaking disappointment after another into a pathetic abyss of artifice and illusion – the class Screw Up.   Between a series of setbacks and more than a few self-destructive errors in judgment, she ends up with nowhere else to except the doorstep of her kind-hearted sister Stella and her brutish husband Stanley . . .  a certain recipe for disaster.  It is the ultimate story of Human Brokenness- and maybe that’s why I find myself so haunted by her story during Holy Week…. the last few days of Lent,  when Christians around the world confront their own brokenness and look for help and healing.

Blanche DuBois looks for help in the worst possible places, time and time again… and in a sense, her central mistake is embodied in her final line:  Whoever you are,  I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.    It’s very clear where all of  those strangers –  all of those one-night stands – have left her.  And by the time she turns to her sister Stella, someone who truly cares about her,  it’s too late- in part because so much damage has already been done, and even more so because she is so lost in her own lies.

It’s a haunting story –  and Tuesday night,  opera star Renee Fleming did a remarkable job of bringing Blanche and her web of delusions to life.  It was impressive to me that someone as beautiful and successful as Fleming was able to portray the aching failures of Blanche so convincingly – while also singing beautifully.   Matching her both vocally and dramatically was a younger American soprano, Susannah Phillips, who portrayed Stella with clarity and warmth.  Fleming was in the world premiere of Previn’s opera fifteen years ago,  and one of her cast mates from that production – tenor Anthony Griffey – reprised his role as the kind-hearted Mitch, who takes a liking to Blanche until he learns about her many colorful indiscretions and the lengths to which she has tried to conceal them.  The real force of nature in the cast was a bass-baritone from New Zealand named Teddy Tahu Rhodes, who portrayed Stanley with menacing intensity (but with a voice that sounded rather strangulated.)  This particular production was interesting in that it was done with the Lyric orchestra onstage rather than sequestered down in the pit-  and there was no set to speak of – just a few pieces of very simple furniture.   But the sparseness of the stage actually helped us in the audience to focus on the music and words and on the performers themselves.  It was a deeply affecting performance.

(I was sad that Marshall- my typical partner-in-crime at the opera- had to miss it.  He was on his way back from a long weekend in New York City,  and an unexpected change in his return fight made it difficult for him to be back in time for the Lyric.   But he generously yielded his ticket for me to use as I saw fit,  and I was glad to be able to bring one of my Carthage voice students,  Nick Huff, along with me.  With the school on spring break,  most of my students were back home and unavailable,  but Nick lives in Kenosha and was happy to join me. And it was a pleasure to share this exciting night with a budding opera fan like Nick.)

So what is the Holy Week lesson of “Streetcar Named Desire”? I suppose if you wanted a simple-minded lesson, it would be something like “Quit messing around and try going to church for a change!”  But I think a deeper lesson is that if we want to experience real kindness,  we shouldn’t look to strangers-  but rather to our Community.   And I don’t mean the city or town in which we happen to live,  but the community or communities in which we truly belong – where we both give and receive kindness.  Earlier this week,  Holy Communion bade farewell to an extraordinary 92-year-old woman named Ruth Fergus, one of the sweetest and joyous and most loving souls any of us have ever been privileged to know.   At her funeral, the eulogies given by her children, grandchildren and friends gave stirring testimony to a life lived vibrantly and generously….a life that powerfully touched so many other lives…. a life that glowed with love. Hers was the kind of life that most of us long to live – a life that matters, where we truly make a difference . . . which has absolutely nothing to do with being rich or famous or beautiful or the subject of a play or opera.   It has to do with kindness…. receiving it and giving it – and even giving it to strangers.   (One of my most enduring memories of Ruth is of seeing her even in her late 80’s working at our church’s Food Pantry, helping to distribute food to the hungry.)

If there is a central cautionary lesson from Blanche Dubois, it’s that all of her hurt and disillusionment had left her incapable of sharing kindness with others-  she was too caught up in her own neediness to give the slightest thought to the needs of anyone else.  That’s really the most pathetic thing about her – the central tenet of her tragedy. And if on the other hand someone were to write the book of Ruth, it would be the inspiring uplifting story of how love matters more than anything else,  how being grateful for one’s blessings is the key to a blessed life,  and of how being really beautiful has nothing to do with what you see in them mirror… but everything to do with what’s in your heart.

Pictured above:  This is the cast of the Lyric’s “Streetcar Named Desire” taking their final bows.  Renee Fleming is the woman at the center, dressed in white.