Not the enigmatic companion of first century evangelist Jesus, but the woeful new opera by Mark Adamo, commissioned in a moment of cerebral lassitude by the usually stalwart San Francisco Opera. Adamo had six years to work on this so there is absolutely no excuse for the clueless visual and musical mishmash I endured last weekend.
Having waited all season for this operatic version of one of my favorite ancient sagas, I was dumbfounded to discover that Adamo had neither narrative insight nor compositional vision to apply to this opera. A few good singers had to endure the embarrassment of singing excruciatingly clunky lyrics (written by the hapless Adamo), and a set that can only be described as a construction site.
Standing on top of the site, or milling around most of the 2 hours and 50 minutes of Magdalene, were a chorus of “archaeologists” whose vocal contributions amounted to repeating the action we were watching on stage, or “ooohing” ala 50s TV drama. Leonard Bernstein crossed with the soundtrack from sci fi’s Contact.
Did Adamo actually think that no one in the audience would notice the apparent lifting of entire passages directly from West Side Story? The dissonant brass punctuation of Somewhere, for example. Much of the music sounded written in the 60s, when xylaphone riffs were considered avant garde.
Attempting to tell too many events in the life and times of Jesus, the disciples and the woman called Mary Magdalene, composer Adamo forgot to include dramatic impact, tension, any sense of crisis or resolution. And this failure—in an opera that puts Christ in bed !!! with the Magdalene—is a crime.
Mezzo Sasha Cooke as the Magdalene attempted to rescue the music from disaster, and she had plenty of support from superb tenor William Burden as the disciple Peter. I must also admit that a few moments when we were not forced to have the narrative muddied by incessant chorale redundancy, there were a few moments of beauty. Specifically the romantic duet in the first act sung by Cooke and her Jesus (Nathan Gunn).
But Adamo just couldn’t control this disaster. Although he flirted with two, maybe three possible endings, he kept on going long after our sense of closure had come….and gone. What a shame, and what a waste of money.
Nobody can write a good opera these days. Not one that will be remembered 100 years from now. Maybe Philip Glass’ works such as “Einstein on the Beach”, etc. will live on. I’m afraid that might be true of much contemporary “classical” music, with a few exceptional composers (very few). I’ve been hearing “new music” since college in the 60’s. It hasn’t evolved much since then. It seems more of a somewhat sterile intellectual exercise and music can be so much more.
I totally agree with you Judi, especially that last sentance. I find new music cold and emotionless and rarely pleasant to listen to.