We’re living in a crazy and scary world right now.  Perhaps it’s no crazier than it has always been but its craziness is served up to us on every side and is impossible to ignore.  A Facebook friend was recently lamenting about how deeply disturbing it is to read the public comments on just about any message board or Youtube video.   You don’t have to look very closely to be confronted by the bitterest sort of hatred and prejudice from the darkest, most shameful corners of the human heart.

Maybe this is why I find myself drawn ever more inexorably into the world of opera.  What once seemed like pleasant entertainment (however highbrow in tone)  now feels to me more like soul-sustenance, a desperately needed escape from everything that makes the world so scary.  I think most of the arts have the capacity to give this to us,  but the scope and scale of opera makes it an ideal vehicle to transport us into another universe, at least for a few minutes.

I experienced that twice this weekend.  The first time occurred not in an opera house but at the Renaissance Movie Theater, where I got to take in the HD Simulcast of a Metropolitan Opera performance of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde,  one of the most transcendentally significant and influential scores in all of music history.   This was one of the first operas by Wagner in which he began to fully embrace the concept of “Gesamtkunstwerk” – which means “all-consuming work of art.”  Wagner wanted opera (or “music drama” as he preferred to call it) to be an art form in which its many elements would blend together in a seamless and mesmerizing whole:  the solo singers,  the orchestra,  the scenery,  the costumes, the lighting,  the chorus, the ballet.  No single component would draw attention to itself,  nor would the performance be broken up into artificial, individual numbers; instead everything would work together in a fashion that had never been seen in operas up to that point.  And in the best productions and performances of this opera where that is achieved,  it’s amazing how the rest of the world simply ceases to exist – and time itself almost comes to a standstill.   (And that’s no small feat for an opera that’s over four hours long.)

That happened for me to a remarkable extent on Saturday.  The performance began at 11:00 a.m. and finished at 3:50 – but I didn’t have the slightest sense of restlessness or fatigue through all of that.   Wagner plunges us into a journey that is utterly engrossing and thrilling.   Unfortunately,  the Met’s production is a modern one with certain elements that would occasionally rattle the viewer and displace them from the spell cast by Wagner’s sublime music.   (Case in point- the ship transporting Isolde in act one is a modern ship, complete with stainless steel tables,  metal stairs,  and electronic viewing screens on the bridge.)  But it was a testament to Wagner’s work that even this heavy-handed modernization couldn’t negate the overpowering impact of the score or of the superb artists singing the arduous titles roles,  Nina Stemme and Stuart Skelton so impressively.

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Bass Rene Pape as King Marke was just as fine, embodying the majesty and humanity of the character both in his singing and stance.   But as fine as the singers were,  they were matched measure for measure by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, one of the world’s finest ensembles,  and the masterful Sir Simon Rattle on the podium.  In fact, the greatest ovation at the end was given to Maestro Rattle and the orchestra and with good reason;  it’s hard to imagine more luscious playing than this.  It was a truly glorious performance.  Which is not to say that this is something for everyone.  This is not exactly an action-packed libretto and for people with more normal constitutions,  this is probably a long slog.   But I’m one of those opera nuts for whom Tristan und Isolde ends too soon.  One just hates to reach that point where it’s time to emerge into the light of day and once again engage with the stresses and strains of the world.

That was Saturday afternoon.  The very next day,  I had the great pleasure of attending one of the world premiere performances of a brand new opera by Robert Aldridge and Herschel Garfein titled Sister Carrie, based on the Theodore Dreiser novel of the same name.  Set around the turn of the last century, it concerns a fairly naive young woman who leaves her small hometown for the exciting if daunting opportunities in the big city.  A married man falls in love with her and essentially is willing to ruin his own life to run off with her-  but in a bewildering case of life moving in contrary motion,  her good fortune steadily ascends as she becomes a star on the stage while his life descends into despair and ruin.  The story is not exactly a pleasant walk in the park,  but it is told very beautifully and movingly. Garfein has expertly transformed this massive (600-page) novel into a libretto that is both workable and expressive, and Aldridge’s score is a wondrous miracle- perhaps the best modern score I have heard in the last 25 or 30 years.  It’s so refreshing to go to a new opera and actually hear melodies and arias – to hear music that is unashamedly beautiful and romantic – rather than hearing a score that seems to be out to assault the listener.

I had the pleasure of doing phone interviews with both Aldridge and Garfein for my morning show,   so I knew a fair amount about the work going into it –  but I am especially glad that I made time to get to the Florentine in time to hear the two give what I think is the single most interesting and informative pre-performance talk that I have ever heard.  The two of them were gracious and articulate, and they also managed to handle the give-and-take of their responses to audience questions with effortless ease.

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When it came time for the performance itself,  I was a bit surprised to find myself sitting right behind Mr. Aldridge, with whom I briefly chatted after the pre-performance talk.   He said he was anxious to know what I thought and I realized that things could get very uncomfortable if I was less than enthused about his new opera.    (I’m pretty good at white lies,  so I was fully prepared to fake enthusiasm if need be.)

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Well, I need not have worried.   Mr. Aldridge’s score was an absolute wonder-  and the performance delivered by the principal singers, chorus, and orchestra was stupendous.    I especially have to tip my hat to baritone Keith Phares, who had to contend with the murderously difficult role of Hurstwood,  the man who falls in love with Carrie and in his pursuit of her manages to throw his life away.   He managed the role’s punishing tessitura quite impressively,  and even more crucial was how authentically he conveyed his character’s slow and painful disintegration.  By the end,  it was hard not to feel genuine heartbreak for the guy,  even if it was his own foolish choices that led him to such despair.   The object of his affections,  Carrie,  was winningly portrayed by Adriana Zabada,  and whenever she was onstage,  you could not take your eyes off of her.   Her own beauty and grace was only matched by her radiant and assured singing. The whole company did themselves proud-  and I was especially happy to see two former students of mine –  Nick Barootian and Edsen Melendez-  up on that stage in featured chorus roles.   Both the chorus and the orchestra served up the best performances I have heard from them;  it was hard to believe that this was a score that they were singing or playing for the first time.  Conductor William Boggs deserves a share of the credit for the performance being so remarkably cohesive.   He said in our interview earlier in the week that when he conducts a work from the standard repertoire like Madama Butterfly,   he knows that there is nothing that he can do to throw such a beloved masterwork into oblivion;  if he conducts a poor performance of Butterfly,  it will still be around,  essentially immune to any damage that he could conceivably inflict upon it.   But with a work being heard for the very first time anywhere,  the mantel of responsibility weighs very heavily on the conductor’s shoulders.

Fortunately for all of us – but especially for Mr. Aldridge and Mr. Garfein – this performance made an absolutely winning case for the opera.   In fact,  of all of the contemporary scores I have heard over the last ten years,  this is almost certainly the only one where I realized that I wanted and even needed to run out and buy its recording the moment it becomes available.   This is an opera I will want to repeatedly revisit,  for the stirring love music,  the bone-crushing chorus of discouraged strikers,  the delightful show-within-a-show,  a sparkling duet for Carrie and one of her stage costars, and much much more.    This was also an opera that I really did not want to end – although it did feel great to be part of the rousing standing ovation that the audience offered up when the composer and librettist took the stage.   What a great moment for them – and for all of us privileged to be there, hearing a work that has never been heard or seen before.  I hope everybody there could grasp what a special privilege it was to be there.  (Judging from the enthusiastic ovation at the end, they did.)

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So thank you,  Met and Florentine,  Wagner and Aldridge/Garfein,  Stemme/Skelton and Zabala/Pharis,  Rattle and Boggs,   for offering up not one but two harbors of musical refuge … where everything wrong with the world was held at bay for a few hours so we could luxuriate in the best that life has to give.