The Nonstop Opera Composer
REDWOOD CITY, CA—Opera composers are caught in a to-be-or-not-to-be quandary when adapting great novels for the stage. Should the text, consonants and all, be squeezed into librettos of talky vocal lines? Or else just retain the gist and plot (like Giuseppe Verdi) while adding rhymes and all those delectable, soaring vowels that singers love so dearly?
Composer Kirke Mechem, 93, audaciously chose the first option in taking on Jane Austen’s classic timeless novel “Pride and Prejudice,” producing his latest opera premiered in a Redwood City concert version. In the process, he was assured to make headlines. It’s quite likely that no composer in history that age has ever premiered his opera, with his own libretto therein. And among notable composers nearing his age, like Elliott Carter, Alan Hovhaness, Leo Ornstein, Dale Rudhyar, Virgil Thomson, Havergal Brian, Charles Widor and Michael Tippett, their late works were instrumental rather than operatic.
So, full of energy, Mechem all smiles came bounding down the aisle after the April 6 unveiling of his latest, on which he had lavished the last 15 years. Before that, the jolly San Franciscan had created one of the most widely staged of all American operas, “Tartuffe” (400+ performances!), as well as written a couple of symphonies played by the San Francisco Symphony half a century ago. Yes, in the 1960s, when these singers had not even been born. Some day, if we’re lucky, he may even divulge his unique formula for longevity.
Could any one serve as a greater inspiration than Mechem for creativity among the growing hordes of senior citizens around the world today?
The new work does justice to Austen’s classic. The Austen-Mechem world is galaxies removed from people today and their concerns; Austen’s women were the landed gentry far more concerned with balancing tea cups, buying chapeaux and landing a husband of means than of—shudder!—getting higher education and protesting social injustices. So the crises here involve not invaders, devils, usurpers or suicides, but rather unreliable boyfriends holding no jobs, busy with little more than asset management. And of course, crises prompted by vanity and pride.
Mechem composes in an ultra-traditional style that would have been comfortable even in the classical era. His sung lines are conversational, in blank verse, using much of the delicate, refined Austen vocabulary. The orchestration is often the most exciting element of the score, boldly accentuating the drama evolving in act two. Here and there he quotes early English folk tunes, jigs and reels to punctuate the scene.
Indeed, Mechem’s “Pride and Prejudice” does not fully come to life till after the intermission, when the four Bennet daughters’ itch to get hitched comes to a head. Bingley has left Jane in the lurch, Elizabeth’s hot-and-cold relation with the proud Darcy comes down to a prime Letter Scene, Lydia has run off with the scoundrel Wickham, and the pompous Rev. Collins has done the right thing by Charlotte. Muddying the stew further are various ladies—snobs, manipulators and malicious gossips—that must be catered to. The cast is huge, calling for at least a dozen solo singers.
The score here is sparked by Darcy’s solo aria, a duettino of Darcy-Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s expansive soliloquy. There’s a poignant duet of clarinet with cello; and, at the other extreme, a true operatic finale complete with fiesta music and chorus bringing down the curtain, and the Redwood Symphony’s Eric K (formerly Kujowsky) leading the large ensemble adroitly. Among community orchestras, this one belongs at the head of the class.
Key roles were sung by Betany Coffland (Elizabeth), the booming-voiced Eugene Brancoveanu (Darcy) and Greg Poirier (Reverend Collins). All but stealing the show was the truly operatic coloratura of Anja Strauss as the manipulative mother Bennet, one who would gladly surrender the crown jewels to find husbands for the four girls. A worthy 18-voice chorus, mostly from Notre Dame de Namur University, came over to Cañada College for the premiere.
Mechem’s opera “Pride and Prejudice,” in world premiere concert performance with the Redwood Symphony. Cañada College Theatre, Redwood City, April 6-7. For info on the Symphony: (650) 366-6872, or go online.
